^ 


-fejl^ 


M./ 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


Messianic  Expectations  and  Modern  Judaism 
Cloth   .   .   .  $1.50 


DISSOLVING    VIEWS 


I\  THE 


HISTORY  OF  JUDAISM 


BY 

RABBI   SOLOMON   SCHINDLER 

OF   THE   TEMPLE   ADATH  ISRAEL   IN  BOSTON 


Tempora  mitfnntur ;  nosque  mutamur  in  illis 


BOSTON   1888 
LEE  AND    SHEPARD   Publishers 

10  MILK  STREET  NEXT  "  THE  OLD   SOUTH   MEETING  HOUSE' 

CHARLES   T.   DILLINGHAM 

NEW    YOHK   718   AND   720  UKOADWAV 


C'DPVRKillT,   1888,   BY    LEF:  AND  SHKPARD. 
Alt  nights  Reserved. 


4a3 
S-33 

THE  AUTHOR  DEDICATES  THIS  BOOK  RESPECTFULLY 

TO  THE 

OF   THK 

Templp:  Adath  Israel  of  Boston. 


Lfwis  Hecht,  Sr.,  President. 
H.  8TBAUSS,  Vice-President. 


Ph.  Strauss,  Trenntrer. 
Solomon  Loewe;  Secretary. 


©itcctora. 


Gates  Barnet. 
Aaron  H.  Moses. 


Joseph  Feldman. 


Isaac  Weil. 
Joseph  Benari. 


Scf)ool  (lommtttee. 

Edw.  S.  Goulston,  Chairman.  M.  H.  Schwarzknbero. 

M.  HiRscHBERG,  Secretary.  N.  SCHLOss. 

G.  Barnet. 


Alexander,  Jacob. 
Abraham,  Ferdinand. 
August,  M. 
Arnstein,  A. 
Abrams,  M. 

Baer,  N. 
Beckhard,  S.  A. 
Benari,  J. 
Buxbaum,  A. 
Barnet,  Gates. 

Cohen,  Mrs.  S. 

Dreyfus,  Chas.  (Salem.) 
Dreyfus,  Isaac. 
Dreyfus,  Jacob. 
Dellheim,  Jacob. 
Dellheim,  Simon. 

Engel,  J. 
Ehrenreich,  M. 
Erlebach,  A. 
Einstein,  L. 
Ellis,  W.  D. 

Friedman,  Jacob. 
Friedman,  Solomon. 
Frank,  Daniel. 
Frank,  Abraham. 
Frank,  Mrs.  K.  W. 
Fellner,  A. 
Fuchs,  F.  D. 
Feldman,  J. 
Friedlander,  S. 


IList  of  JJKcmbcrss  (1888). 

Fischel,  I.  S. 
Freed,  A.  F. 

Gattman,  J.  M. 

Goldsmith,  William. 

Goulston,  Edw.  S. 

Gross,  J. 

(iross,  R.  (Worcester.) 

(TUggenheim,Jos.(Sexton.) 

Harris,  L. 
Hecht,  Jacob  H. 
Hecht,  Lewis,  Sr. 
Hecht,  Lewis,  Jr. 
Hirschberg,  M. 
Hirschberg,  S. 
Habern,  Cliarles. 
Heilbiirn,  J. 
Heilbron,  .1. 
Herman,  J.  M. 
Hahlo,  M.  J. 
Hyneman,  A. 

Jacobs,  J. 
Jesselsolin,  L. 

Koopman,  J. 
KafTenbiirg,  .1. 
Kciller,  L. 

Loewe,  Solomon. 
Levy,  J. 
Levy,  L.  J. 
Lissner,  S. 
Lilienthal,  A.  L. 


Morse,  Hon.  Leopold. 
Jlorse,  Jacob. 
Morse,  Jacob  C. 
Moses,  A.  H. 
Moers,  C.  J. 

Norton,  Jacob. 

Pickert,  L. 

Peavv,  I. 

I'eav'v,  J.  (Watervillc,  Jle.) 

Phillips,  J. 

Rosenfeld,  M. 

Rosenfeld,  N. 

Schwarzenberg,  M.  H. 
Sho)iinger,  B.  J. 
Shuman,  A. 
Sliuinan,  S. 
Stern,  L. 
Schloss,  N. 
Strauss,  H. 
Strauss,  L. 
Strauss,  Ph. 
Strauss,  L. 
Strauss,  F. 

Wolf,  L. 
Wallace,  L. 
Weil,  J. 

AVcil,  Col.  Charles. 
Weinberg,  William. 
Wolfson,  L. 
Williams,  Ed. 

Young,  J. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    Introduction  (October  7,  1887)  * 1 

II.     Moses  and  his  Time  (October  14,  1887) 12 

III.  Ezra  and  his  Time  (October  21,  1887) 25 

IV.  Simon,  THE  Last  OF  THE  Maccabees  (October  28,  1887),  39 
V.     Rabbi  Jochanan  Bex  Saccai  and  his  Time  (Novem- 
ber 4,  1887)     53 

VI.     The  Talmud  (November  11,  1887) 66 

VII.    An  AN  Ben  David  and  his  Time  (November  18,  1887)   .  70 

VIII.    Saadia  and  his  Time  (November  25,  1887) 93 

IX.    Abulhassan  Jehuda  Halevi  and  his  Time  (Decem- 
ber 2,  1887) 108 

X.    Moses  Maimonides  (December  9,  1887) 122 

XI.    Joseph  Albo  and  his  Time  (December  16,  1^87)     .     .  136 
XII.    Don  Isaac  Abrabanel  and  his  Time  (December  23, 

1887) 149 

XIII.  Reuchlin  and  Pfefferkorn  (December  30,  1887)  .     .  163 

XIV.  Joseph,  Prince  of  Naxos,  and  his  Time  (January  6, 

1888) 179 

XV.     Joseph  Karo  (January  13,  1888) 190 

XVI.     Manasse  Ben  Israel  and  his  Time  (January 20, 1888),  202 

XVTI.     Baruch  Spinoza  and  his  Time  (January  27,  1888)  .     .  215 
XVIII.     Jonathan  Eibeschuetz  and  his  Time  (February  3, 

1888) ' -228 

XIX.     Moses  Mendelssohn  and  his  Time  (February  10, 1888),  240 

XX.     Boerne  and  Heine  and  their  time  (February  17, 1888),  253 

XXI.     Abraham  Geiger  and  his  Time  (February  24,  1888)  .  266 

XXII.     Moses  Montefiore  and  his  Time  (March  2,  1888) .     .  279 

XXIII.  Rabbi  Isaac  M.  Wise  and  his  Time  (March  9,  1888) .  296 

XXIV.  The  Present  Hour  (March  16,  1888) 314 

XXV,     Conclusion  (March  23,  1888) 327 

•  Pate  of  Lecture. 


DISSOLVING  VIEWS 


I. 

INTRODUCTION 


Authors  and  the  reading  public  are  generally  found 
at  variance  with  each  other  in  regard  to  the  desirability  or 
necessity  of  a  preface.  Authors,  as  a  rule,  are  convinced 
that  a  preface  is  indispensable  to  a  better  understanding 
of  their  books,  and  they  seldom  fail  to  insert  some  prefatory 
remarks  between  the  title  page  and  the  first  chapter,  de- 
ceiving themselves  with  the  presumption  that  the  "kind" 
reader  will  peruse  their  roman-n  umbered  pages  before 
reading  the  book  itself.  The  reading  public,  on  the  other 
hand,  also  as  a  rule,  considers  the  preface  a  superfluous 
addition  to  the  book.  "  If  the  author  cannot  make  him- 
self understood  and  appreciated  by  his  work,"  readers  will 
say,  "  he  will  surely  fail  to  do  so  by  the  most  elaborate 
preface  ;  if  the  book  is  interesting,  if  it  contains  some  use- 
ful information  it  will  float  by  its  own  merits,  and  rise  to 
the  surface  without  the  aid  of  the  prefatorial  life-preser- 
ver." This  difference  of  opinion  between  author  and 
public  is  more  quickly  and  more  pleasantly  adjusted  than 
one  would  expect.  The  knot  is  untied  in  the  simplest 
possible  manner.  The  public  permits  the  author  to  write 
as  many  pages  of  preface  as  he  sees  fit,  but  preserves  for 
itself  the  privilege  of  skipping  these  first  pages.  As  stub- 
boi'nly  as  authors  persist  in  pinning  prefaces  to  their  pub- 

1 


2  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

lications,  so  stubbornly  does  the  public  refuse  to  read 
them,  and  this  silent  agreement  between  the  interested 
parties  seems  to  give  satisfaction  all  around. 

For  the  fourth  time  since  the  dedication  of  this  temple, 
I  appear  before  you  to  reopen  our  Friday  evening  services 
for  the  coming  season.  As  in  previous  years,  I  am  again 
prepared  to  address  you  in  a  course  of  consecutive  lec- 
tures on  topics  which,  as  I  hope,  will  not  only  prove  in- 
teresting to  you,  and  afford  you  some  desirable  informa- 
tion, but  which  will  help  build  you  up,  both  intellectually 
and  morally.  I  hope  through  my  lectures  not  only  to 
make  you  wiser,  but,  by  removing  errors  and  reinstating 
truth  in  its  lawful  domain,  to  make  you  better;  and  right 
here  I  find  myself  in  the  self-same  predicament  with  the 
rest  of  authors.  I  think  that  a  preface  is  needed  to  intro- 
duce the  course  of  lectures  which  I  have  laid  out,  while 
you  may  think  that  such  an  introduction  is  out  of  place 
and  superfluous.  I  think  that  I  should  like  to  explain  a 
few  points  beforehand,  for  which,  as  it  appears  to  me,  I 
shall  find  no  room  in  my  lectures.  You  may  think  that 
they  belong  there  and  not  elsewhere ;  I  think  that  you 
ought  to  be  furnished  with  a  plan  of  the  structure  which 
I  intend  to  build  up,  that  you  may  become  familiar  at 
once  with  its  wings,  floors,  apartments  and  their  purposes. 
You  may  judge  that  you  could  find  out  all  such  things  by 
yourselves.  It  is  fortunate  that  in  this  one  respect  the 
lecturer  may  incur  the  envy  of  his  confrere,  the  writer 
of  a  book.  He  is  not  at  the  mercy  of  the  reader  who,  by 
a  slight  movement  of  his  impatient  finger,  can  skip  the 
obnoxious  preface  ;  however,  I  do  not  wish  to  abuse  my 
prerogatives,  and  I  beg  your  pardon  when  I  dare  to  place 
my  judgment  for  a  moment  above  yours  and  bring  before 
you  to-night  a  few  subjects  which  I  deem  essential  to  a 


INTRODUCTION  Q 

proper  understanding  of  the  series  of  lectures  which  I 
have  prepared. 

It  is  no  difficult  task  for  aji  architect  to  erect  a  building 
upon  a  vacant  lot.  He  can  break  the  ground  according 
to  his  plans,  and  even  if  he  has  to  blast  here  and  there  a 
rock  that  crosses  his  way,  or  if,  as  upon  made  land,  he 
has  to  drive  a  number  of  piles  into  the  soft  ground,  such 
obstacles  are  easily  surmounted,  —  his  work  can  progress 
system  a  ticall}^  and  the  walls  will  rise  up  at  an  early  day. 
A  far  more  difficult  task  is  it  for  him  to  remodel  an  old 
house,  to  build  where  something  else  stands  already.  It 
is  slow  work  to  tear  doAvn  a  foundation  without  harming 
that  portion  of  the  bnilding  which  rests  upon  it,  and,  as 
in  old  buildings  the  cement  has  often  become  hardened 
to  such  a  degree  that  the  stones  would  rather  crack  than 
be  lifted  out  of  the  layer  of  mortar  by  which  they  are 
held  together,  it  requires  the  utmost  caution  not  to  destroy 
more  than  is  desirable.  If  to-day  a  race  of  the  human 
species  could  be  found  which,  though  intellectually  rip- 
ened, has  never  heard  of  religion,  it  would  be  compara- 
tively an  easy  task  to  teach  such  people  a  creed  which 
would  be  purity  itself  and  free  from  any  admixture  of 
superstition  ;  religious  reformers,  however,  do  not  find 
such  a  desirable  material,  they  must  take  men  as  they  are, 
they  must  build  on  ground  upon  which  something  else 
stands  already,  they  are  compelled  to  remodel  old  struc- 
tures, to  tear  down  on  one  side  and  to  build  up  on  .the 
other.  They  find  frequently  the  most  valuable  material 
so  deeply  encrusted  in  errors,  or  errors  so  deeplj''  imbedded 
in  excellent  material,  that  all  efforts  to  separate  tliem  are 
hopeless,  and  the  stones  not  seldom  break  before  the  mor- 
tar will  yield. 

Right  in  the  very  foundation  upon  which  the  structure 


4  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

of  religion  is  reared  we  have  come  in  onr  time  to  detect 
an  error  which  must  be  removed  before  we  can  think  of 
altering  and  improving  the  building.  This  error  is  so 
deepl}^  and  so  fii-mly  imbedded  that  it  will  require  time 
and  repeated  and  strenuous  efforts  to  lift  it  from  its 
sockets.  It  is  the  error  that  religion  is  something  solid, 
something  that  has  been  settled  long  ago,  sometliing  that, 
like  Minerva,  has  sprung  from  the  head  of  a  God  in  per- 
fect condition,  and  has  remained  perfect  to  this  day. 
Every  religious  sect  holds  that  for  an  miknown  length  of 
time  all  mankind  has  been  sunk  in  superstition,  that  not 
a  ray  of  light  had  pierced  the  spiritual  darkness,  until  at 
last  God  had  sent  their  own  prophet  as  a  messenger,  and 
had  revealed  to  them  the  only  true  religion.  Since  then, 
this  religion  has  i-emained  the  same,  and  the  same  it  must 
remain  forever.  Being  perfect,  the  very  thought  of  im- 
proving it  becomes  an  absurdity,  as  improvement  implies 
a  state  of  imperfection.  Every  attempt  to  alter  the  orig- 
inal religion  would  be  sacrilege,  it  would  be  followed  by 
disastrous  consequences,  and  must,  therefore,  be  sup- 
pressed at  whatever  cost.  At  the  same  time  such  zealots 
do  not  know  that  their  alleged  original  religion  was  an 
innovation  at  the  time  of  its  birth,  and  had  been  ob- 
structed by  exactly  such  zealots  as  they  are. 

Whenever  the  question  is  raised,  what  is  Judaism, 
Christianitj-,  Mohammedanism,  or  Buddhism,  the  pro- 
pounders  of  the  question  expect  a  short  and  definite 
answer ;  they  suppose  that  these  religions  can  be  described 
like  as  many  concrete  objects,  and  they  feel  disappointed 
when  evasive  answers  are  forthcoming,  when  from  a 
thousand  persons  they  receive  a  thousand  various  explana- 
tions. The  fact  is  that  religion  is  not  a  firm  substance 
which  can  be  counted,  weighed,  or  measured,  but  that  it 


INTRODUCTION  5 

is  something  ethereal,  that  it  has  been  and  still  is  con- 
stantly changing  its  forms  and  ingredients,  that  it  has 
been  one  thing  at  one  period  and  another  at  some  other 
time,  that  it  is  one  thing  to  one  man  and  a  different  thing 
to  the  next.  The  fault  rests  with  us  if  we  fail  to  see,  or 
do  not  wish  to  see,  that  religious  thoughts  must  have 
kept  stride  with  the  accumulation  of  ex[)eriences,  that 
religion  has  been  simply  the  formula  by  which  every  age 
has  expressed  its  highest  intellectual  attainments.  In 
a  people  of  limited  knowledge,  witli  a  narrow  intellectual 
horizon,  lofty  religious  principles  can  neither  be  found 
nor  expected  to  be  found,  while  a  low  standard  of  religion 
has  always  betrayed  a  low  standard  of  civilization.  Kelig- 
ion  has  followed  as  naturally  the  progress  of  humanity 
in  arts,  sciences,  and  experiences  as  the  shadow  follows 
the  movements  of  the  sun  on  the  dial.  It  is  of  all  grave 
errors  the  gravest  to  presume  that  religion  has  fallen 
meteor-like  from  heaven,  some  thousand  years  ago,  and 
has  since  then  remained  unchanged,  and  it  is  equally 
absurd  to  presume  of  Judaism  that  it  could  be  defined  or 
described  in  a  few  words,  as  if  it  had  been  the  same  thing 
at  all  times  and  to  all  generations.  The  genial  town  folks 
of  Schilda  could  sooner  hope  to  catch  the  sunlight  in  a 
mouse-trap  and  to  carry  it  into  their  windowless  meeting- 
house, than  we  could  hope  to  catch  the  volatile  essence  of 
Judaism  within  the  wire  grating  of  some  definition. 

Although  the  laws  which  govern  the  universe  have 
come  into  existence  with  it,  although  mankind  has  had 
the  opportunity  of  watching  and  studjdng  them  since  the 
day  of  its  birth,  one  after  the  other  has  been  what  we 
call  "discovered"  only  after  long  intervals  of  time.  The 
law  of  gravitation  was  surely  nothing  new  when  Newton 
discovered  it ;  apples  had  fallen  to  the  ground  since  times 


6  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

immemorial,  and  the  planets  had  gravitated  towards  the 
sun  since  they  had  been  created.  Millions  of  human 
beings  had  looked  up  to  them  with  eyes  of  the  same 
construction  as  those  of  Sir  Isaac ;  but  it  was  only  from 
the  moment  when  he,  suspecting  a  law  of  gravitation, 
applied  his  theory  to  his  calculations,  and  found  that, 
starting  from  that  proposition,  each  and  every  astronomi- 
cal problem  could  be  solved,  that  the  law  of  gravitation 
was  born  to  human  knowledge.  It  was  surely  a  fact  as 
old  as  both  sun  and  earth  that  the  former  stands  still 
while  the  latter  swings  in  a  circle  around  it;  but  not  until 
Keppler  had  applied  this  rule,  and  had  found  that  it 
would  work  in  all  cases  and  explain  all  combinations,  was 
the  existence  of  such  a  law  demonstrated.  All  such 
discoveries  appear  afterwards  so  simple  that  we  wonder 
why  they  have  not  been  made  sooner.  For  thousands  of 
years  mankind  has  been  puzzled  by  the  ever  recurring 
question,  how  to  account  for  the  variety  of  created 
beings,  or  how  to  account  for  the  manifold  religious  de- 
nominations—  in  a  word,  how  to  account  for  the  manifold 
forms  in  both  the  physical  and  intellectual  world.  All 
efforts  to  solve  these  riddles  had  been  in  vain ;  an  answer 
that  would  give  apparent  satisfaction  in  one  sphere  would 
prove  to  be  utterly  worthless  in  another,  and,  Avhereas  the 
laws  of  nature  are  universal  and  allow  of  no  exception, 
all  such  answers  bore  the  mark  of  fallacy  right  on  their 
faces.  It  was  left  to  our  century  to  remove  the  veil  from 
the  simplest  of  laws,  that  of  evolution.  No  sooner  do  we 
apply  its  theory  to  a  problem  than  its  entangled  threads 
become  untwisted  as  if  by  magic.  Applied  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  physical  world,  all  that  had  appeared  to  be 
exceptional  or  the  result  of  a  whim  takes  now  its  place  as 
a  necessary  conseq^uence  of  an  immutable    law   and   be- 


INTRODUCTION  7 

comes  a  part  of  a  hanuunious  unit.  Applied  to  the  ex- 
ternal or  internal  life  o'L  nations,  to  their  political,  social, 
or  religious  condition,  the  must  beautiful  order  replaces 
at  once  the  former  chaos.  Nothing  is  found  to  have  been 
left  to  chance,  one  step  is  the  necessary  continuation  of 
a  previous  one,  one  attainment  the  result  of  a  preceding- 
one,  one  thought  is  built  upon  an  earlier  one.  There  is 
no  interruption,  no  gulf  yawns  between  one  stage  of  de- 
velopment and  the  next.  All  our  religious  phenomena 
find  their  solution  when  the  law  of  evolution  is  applied 
to  them.  It  is  by  force  of  this  law  that  religions  have 
changed  and  do  change  imperceptibly  ;  it  is  by  force  of 
this  law  that  Judaism  has  been  evolved  from  a  germ  to  its 
present  state,  assuming  a  new  appearance  upon  every  new 
stage  of  development.  Seen  by  the  light  of  the  theory 
of  evolution,  the  history  of  Judaism,  a  perplexing  conun- 
drum otherwise,  becomes  lucid  and  transparent  at  once. 

The  lectures  which  I  intend  to  deliver  during  the 
coming  season  shall  prove  this  assertion  ;  they  shall  be  an 
application  of  the  law  of  evolution  to  the  history  of 
Judaism. 

I  feel,  furthermore,  the  obligation  resting  upon  me  to 
explain  the  peculiar  title  which  I  have  chosen  for  the 
whole  series  of  my  lectures. 

"  Dissolving  views  "  are,  as  you  all  know,  pictures  thrown 
by  a  magic  lantern  upon  a  screen.  There  is,  however,  a 
difference  between  "  dissolving  views  "  and  the  exhibition 
of  a  plain  stereopticon.  The  latter  throws  the  design 
abruptly  upon  the  screen  ;  the  operator  withdraws  one  plate 
before  he  inserts  another,  and  there  is  always  an  interval, 
be  it  ever  so  short,  between  one  picture  and  the  other. 
The  apparatus  by  which  "  dissolving^  views  "  are  produced 
is  so  constructed  that  one  picture  seems  to  dissolve  into 


8  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

mist,  to  melt  into  air,  while  the  forms  of  another  pic- 
ture appear  underneath  it  and  increase  in  strength  in 
the  same  proportion  as  the  outlines  of  the  former  vanish 
from  sight.  In  nature  and  history  we  may  observe 
a  similar  process,  one  creation  fades  away  while  the 
other  rises  into  view  :  it  is  therefore  my  plan  to  picture 
in  every  one  of  my  lectures  some  prominent  person  of 
Jewish  history ;  to  let  such  a  man  stand  forth  from  the 
background  of  his  contemporary  age,  and  to  allow  the 
whole  picture  to  melt  slowly  away  and  to  change  into 
the  forms  of  a  new  person  and  a  new  age.  Thus,  I  think, 
I  shall  be  able  to  show  to  you  the  evolutionary  progress 
of  religious  thought  from  age  to  age,  the  differences  be- 
tween two  or  more  historical  periods,  and  the  remarkable 
changes  which  have  taken  place  in  Judaism  in  a  contin- 
uous order  to  this  day.  The  erroneous  though  well 
fortified  idea  that  Judaism  or  any  other  religion  is  some- 
thing that  has  been  transmitted  or  could  have  been 
transmitted  in  its  integrity  from  generation  to  generation, 
or  the  still  more  erroneous  idea  that,  while  humanity  has 
progressed  in  everything  else,  it  has  retrogressed,  or 
could  retrogress,  in  religion,  will  thus  receive  its  proper 
refutation  and  be  shown  in  its  naked  absurdity. 

Whenever  you  open  a  book  that  pretends  to  be  a  his- 
tory of  Judaism  or  of  the  Jews,  you  will  in  most  cases 
find  that  nine  tenths  of  the  book  are  devoted  to  a 
minute  description  of  persons  and  events  which  belong 
to  a  period  of  which  we  have  very  little  if  any  authentic 
information.  The  authors  of  such  books,  as  a  rule,  write 
most  about  things  of  which  they  know  least.  With 
these  nine  tenths  they  cover  a  period  of  about  twelve 
hundred  years,  the  time  which  stretches  between  Moses 
and  the  destruction  of  the  second  temple,  and,  while  they 


INTRODUCTION  9 

go  into  details  at  the  beginning,  we  find  that  the 
nearer  they  come  to  the  end,  the  nearer  they  draw  to 
real  historical  ground,  the  less  do  they  say,  and  the  longer 
grow  the  periods  which  they  leave  unnoticed.  The 
last  tenth  of  their  historj^  is  then  devoted  by  them 
to  the  following  eighteen  hundred  ^-ears,  to  the  greater 
half  of  Jewish  history,  to  a  period  for  the  exploration  of 
which  ample  authentic  material  is  not  lacking.  This 
deplorable  mode  of  treating  Jewish  history  has  become  so 
common  that  among  both  Jews  and  Gentiles  the  erro- 
neous idea  prevails  that  very  little  such  history  exists, 
that  for  eighteen  hundred  years  Judaism  has  been  defid  or 
at  least  asleep,  and  that  during  the  greater  part  of  its 
existence  Judaism  has  not  taken  any  active  part  in  the 
intellectual  work  of  the  nations  among  whom  Jews  hap- 
pened to  dwell.  Not  alone  there  is  not  a  particle  of 
truth  in  such  assertions,  just  the  opposite  is  the  case. 
The  post-biblical  history  of  the  Jews,  of  which  no  one  seems 
to  know  much,  is  the  history  of  Judaism.  Where  we 
are  made  to  believe  in  stagnation,  we  find  the  most 
active  and  the  most  vigorous  life ;  where  ignorance  sup- 
poses a  desert,  there  we  find  the  most  luxuriant  vege- 
tation. If  we  desire  to  obtain  an  insight  into  Jewish  life, 
we  must  turn  to  the  larger  portion  of  Jewish  history, 
to  that  part  which  stands  upon  the  ground  of  authen- 
ticity. 

It  is  this  portion  of  Jewish  history  which  I  shall  treat 
with  especial  care  in  my  lectures. 

When  we  ask  to  wliat  causes  that  general  ignorance 
concerning  the  latter  and  most  important  part  of  Jewish 
history  is  due.  or  why  it  is  that  we  cram  the  heads  of  our 
little  ones  with  the  myths  and  fables  of  what  we  call 
biblical  history,  and  send  them  from  our  schools  without 


10  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

the  least  knowledge  of  what  has  transpired  within  Juda- 
ism during  the  last  eighteen  hundred  ^^ears,  we  shall 
receive  the  same  answer  which  will  come  to  us  when  we 
ask  why  the  Temple  is  not  made  a  continuation  of  the 
Sabbath  school,  and  wh}-  preachers  touch  only  slightly 
our  latest  histor}^  while,  year  in  3'ear  out,  they  delight 
their  pious  listeners  with  a  narrative  of  the  adventures  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob.  The  cause  for  this  deplora- 
ble state  of  affairsj  in  the  first  place,  is  the  error  upon 
which  I  have  commented  already,  that  religion  came 
to  us  in  olden  times  complete,  and  has  never  changed 
since.  A  second  cause  is  that  history  is  a  science  which  is 
rather  young.  While  the  only  book  which  contained  some 
information  regarding  the  early  history  of  Judaism  was 
read,  re-read,  and  constantly  commented  upon,  the  study 
of  history  in  general  was  neglected  b}^  our  ancestors,  and 
when  the  new  light  dawned  upon  us,  when,  thrgugh  the 
indefatigable  labors  of  modern  Jewish  scholars,  the  gates 
of  history  were  unlocked,  and  its  stores  laid  open  to 
inspection,  the  result  did  not  harmonize  with  the  well 
established  and  well  fortified  theory  of  the  divine  origin 
of  religion.  It  was,  therefore,  not  granted  admission  into 
the  synagogue.  The  Jewish  preacher,  replacing  the 
rabbi  of  old,  was  vain  enough  to  copy  his  Gentile  col- 
league in  his  costume,  his  mode  of  delivery,  and  even  in 
his  topics.  Instead  of  following  into  the  footsteps  of  his 
predecessor,  and  informing  his  hearers  concerning  all  they 
needed  to  know,  he  began  to  exhort,  to  criticise,  to 
threaten,  in  a  word,  to  assume  the  haughty  position  of 
God's  steward  on  earth.  It  is  the  latest  and  most 
modern  school  of  Jewish  ministers  which  has  shoved 
aside  such  presumption,  and  has  made  it  its  object  to 
teach  and  to  inform,  in  a   word,  to  transform   the  pulpit 


INTRODUCTION  11 

into  a  platform.  Young  as  is  this  new  enterprise,  it  has 
been  crowned  so  far  with  greater  success  than  its  most 
enthusiastic  apostles  ever  dreamed.  Within  a  few  years 
the  lecture  has  supplanted  the  sermon  in  almost  all  intel- 
ligent Jewisli  congregations.  A  better  understanding  of 
Judaism  has  spread  amongst  both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  and 
superstition  begins  to  withdraw  from  the  sledge-hammer 
blows  which  able  lecturers  direct  against  it. 

This  closes  my  preface,  and  my  next  lecture  shall 
throw  the  first  picture  upon  the  screen ;  it  will  represent 
Moses  and  his  contemporary  age. 

If  the  word  of  a  poet  is  in  place  as  a  recapitulation  of 
my  introductory  remarks,  it  will  be  tliis  :  — 

My  thoughts  are  with  the  Dead ;  with  them 

I  live  in  long  past  years, 
Their  virtues  love,  their  faults  condemn, 

Partake  their  liopes  and  fears; 
And  from  their  lessons  seek  and  find 
Instruction  with  an  humble  mind. 


II. 

MOSES   AND   HIS   TIME 

The  mode  of  examining  a  witness  in  a  lawsuit  was,  dur- 
ing the  time  of  the  second  Jewish  Commonwealth,  far  differ- 
ent from  what  it  has  been  in  any  other  country,  or  is  now 
among  us.  Witnesses  were  restricted  to  the  answering 
of  two  sets  of  questions :  one  in  regard  to  time  and  placed 
the  other  in  regard  to  relevant  circumstances,  and  the 
testimony  of  at  least  two  witnesses,  agreeing  with  each 
other  in  the  smallest  details,  was  required  to  establish  a 
fact  as  true.  It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  Flavins 
Josephus,  the  Jewish  historian  of  the  first  century,  should 
have  applied  the  same  rule  to  the  scrutiny  of  history  in 
general,  and  that,  in  his  answer  to  Apion,  he  should  have 
established  the  following  remarkable  proposition  :  "  The 
characteristic  of  true  history,"  says  he,  "is  the  concord- 
ance of  several  writers  as  to  subject,  time,  and  place." 
Should  we  not  expect  of  a  historian  who  seems  to  have 
been  so  well  aware  of  the  unreliability  of  history  that  he 
would  accept  no  statement  as  true  unless  it  should  have 
the  support  of  at  least  two  writers,  who  would  be  in 
strict  accordance  as  to  subject,  time,  and  place,  or  should 
we  suspect  that  he  would  have  flagrantly  contradicted- 
the  statement  of  a  book  which  he  himself  describes  as 
written  with  the  utmost  caution  and  by  the  most  reliable 
persons?  Should  we  not  rather  expect  that  such  a  writer 
must  have  had  superior  evidence  for  his  version  of  the 

12 


MOSRS    AND    HIS    TIME  13 

same  event  ?  If  Josephns  had  been  familiar  with  the 
Bible,  and  about  this  there  can  be  no  doubt,  or  if  the 
Bible  had  read  in  his  time  as  it  reads  to-day,  and  if, 
furthermore,  this  book  had  been  considered  then  to  con- 
tain the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  as  it  is  in  our 
time,  it  is  utterly  inexplicable  how  he  could  have  pro- 
duced a  history  of  the  life  of  Moses  such  as  he  has.  He 
differs  so  materially  from  the  biblical  record,  he  takes  so 
much  away  from  one  side  and  adds  so  much  to  the  other, 
that,  if  he  should  be  taken  as  a  second  witness,  his  testi- 
mony would  contradict  that  of  the  first  witness  in  such  a 
measure  that,  according  to  his  own  rule,  a  judge  could 
place  little  reliance  in  either. 

You  are  all  familiar  with  the  short  sketch  of  the  life  of 
the  srreat  law-giver  as  contained  in  the  Bible.  You  have 
been  told  already,  when  on  your  mother's  lap,  how  a  cruel 
Egyptian  king  had  desired  to  check  the  unprecedented 
increase  of  a  subjected  people  by  a  law,  demanding  that 
every  new-born  child  of  the  male  sex  should  be  drowned ; 
how  one  child  was  miraculously  saved  by  the  daugh- 
ter of  that  very  king,  and  was  educated  under  his 
very  eyes ;  how,  afterwards,  having  accidentally  killed  an 
Egyptian  officer,  Moses  fled  the  country,  lived  for  fort}' 
years  as  a  shepherd  in  Midian,  and  upon  a  call,  miracu- 
lously received  from  God,  returned  to  Egypt,  liberated 
his  people  from  bondage,  brought  them  through  a  desert 
into  a  new  land,  and  transformed  them  by  wise  legisla- 
tion into  one  of  the  most  cultured  nations  on  earth. 
Josephus  must  have  heard  and  read  the  stories  in  exactl}- 
the  same  version  as  you  have,  but  he  who  demands  as  a 
characteristic  of  true  history  the  concordance  of  several 
writers  as  to  subject,  time,  and  place  tells  a  still  more 
romantic  story  of  the  ancient  legislator.     He  is  informed 


14  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

that  the  king  was  advised  by  a  dream  that  a  Hebrew 
child  would  bring  calamity  upon  Egygt,  and  that,  there- 
fore, and  for  no  such  reason  as  given  in  the  biblical  record, 
he  had  ordered  the  massacre  of  all  male  children  ;  that 
one  child,  on  account  of  its  extraordinary  beauty,  was 
saved,  hidden,  educated,  and  protected  by  his  daughter, 
whose  name  he  even  does  know  and  gives  us  as  Thermutis. 
He  knows  nothing  of  his  quarrel  with  an  Egyptian  over- 
seer, but  he  tells  a  long  story  of  how  Moses  was  made 
general  by  the  king  to  repel  an  invasion  of  the  Abys- 
sinians  ;  how  he  defeated  the  hostile  armies  in  several 
battles,  and  even  carried  the  war  into  their  own  country ; 
how  he  besieged  their  impregnable  capital  and  captured 
it,  because  his  personal  beauty  had  won  the  heart  of  the 
Ethiopian  princess,  who  brought  him  the  city  as  a  dowry  ; 
how  the  Egyptians  had  become  envious  of  him  on  account 
of  his  marvellous  success,  and  had  forced  him  into  a  volun- 
tary exile. 

After  such  a  departure  from  the  biblical  text,  Josephus 
returns  to  that  source  and  relates  the  rest  in  a  similar 
manner,  though  frequently  differing  in  regard  to  numbers 
and  to  time  from  the  original.  From  what  sources  he 
had  taken  his  biography  of  Moses,  and  what  reason  he 
had  to  ascribe  a  better  authority  to  them  than  to  the 
book  which  must  have  even  then  borne  the  stamp  of 
divine  authority,  we  have  no  means  of  determining. 
From  a  book  written  by  Manetho,  who  flourished  during 
the  reign  of  Ptolemy,  he  may  have  obtained  son^^  of  his 
facts ;  but  why  he  has  preferred  the  statements  of  so  late 
a  writer,  and  one  whom  he  has  found  occasion  to  contra- 
dict several  times,  to  the  statement  of  the  Bible,  remains 
an  unsolved  riddle. 

I  have  promised  to  present  to  you  a  picture  of  Moses 


MOSES   AND   HIS   TIME  15 

and  his  tiine  :  for  it  is  evident  that,  if  we  intend  to 
embark  for  a  research  into  the  liistory  of  Judaism,  we 
must  find  some  begiiniing  and  start  from  some  phice.  It 
is,  furthermore,  evident  that  the  first  distinctive  signs  of 
the  life  of  Judaism  gather  around  the  time  and  the  person 
of  a  man  who  has  become  known  to  the  world  by  the 
name  of  Moses.  It  is  rather  unfortunate  for  us  tliat  we 
have  no  other  sources  from  which  to  obtain  a  true  descrip- 
tion of  the  man  and  his  time  than  the  two  which  I  have 
mentioned  —  the  Bible  and  Josephus ;  and  whereas  the 
latter,  in  spite  of  his  theory  that  the  characteiistic  of 
true  history  must  consist  in  the  concordance  of  several 
writers  in  regard  to  subject,  time,  and  place,  lias  not 
transmitted  to  us  the  least  reason  nor  the  least  authority 
why  he,  as  a  later  writer,  has  dared  to  set  aside  older 
records  in  so  many  things,  his  testimony  receives  con- 
demnation from  his  own  mouth,  and  con^sequently  only 
one  witness,  the  Bible,  remains  on  the  stand.  Whenever 
we  have  to  deal  with  but  one  witness  for  the  support 
of  an  assertion,  it  lies  within  our  nature  that  we  grow 
suspicious.  A  fact  can  be  true  notwithstanding  that  only 
one  person  was  present  when  it  occurred,  and  it  would 
be  absurd  to  reject  it  as  false  on  that  account,  but  the 
uncorroborated  evidence  does  fail  to  convince  us.  Our 
nature  demands  a  corroboration  before  it  feels  safe  in 
accepting  the  statements  of  one  witness  as  the  truth.  In 
such  cases  we  look  for  what  we  call  internal  evidence. 
We  inquire  into  the  general  character  of  the  witness,  we 
take  pains  to  ascertain  liis  veracity,  we  submit  him  to 
severe  cross-examination,  and  as  soon  as  we  find  that 
there  is  the  slightest  contradiction  between  one  of  his 
statements  and  another,  we  throw  out  his  testimony  en- 
tirely, we  search  for  circumstantial  evidence,  that  is,  for  a 


16  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

class  of  witnesses  which,  though  they  cannot  speak,  may 
still  strengtlien  and  support  his  testimony. 

In  regard  to  the  Bible,  the  one  witness  which  has  re- 
mained for  our  research,  the  internal  evidence,  gives  us  no 
sufficient  satisfaction.  Bil)li('al  criticism  has  proven,  be- 
yond doubt,  that  the  book  as  we  have  it  has  passed 
■through  many  changes,  that  it  was  composed  from  sources 
which  are  now  lost,  and  by  men  whose  very  names  we  do 
not  know.  If  the  events  narrated  in  the  book  were  such 
as  would  appear  probable  to  us,  we  should  hesitate  less  to 
accept  them  as  true,  but  they  are  so  fanciful  and  so  utterly 
improbable  tliat  a  direct  intervention  of  God  is  required 
to  account  for  them.  Of  circumstantial  evidence  none  to 
speak  of  is  forthcoming.  For  very  many  years,  science 
has  taken  in  hand  the  cross-examination  of  this  witness, 
and  all  the  researches  which  have  been  made  in  Egj^pt, 
the  land  which  the  witness  fixes  as  the  place  of  the  occur- 
rence, liave  been  made  with  a  hope  of  being  able  to  forge 
a  strong  chain  of  circumstantial  evidence,  either  in  sup- 
port or  refutation  of  the  Bible.  It  was  for  the  sake  of 
obtaining  such  evidence  that  scholars  have  devoted  a  life- 
time to  the  interpretation  of  the  hieroglyphics,  that 
neither  money  nor  labor  was  spared  to  wring  from  stones 
and  mummies  a  testimony  for  or  against  the  Bible.  The 
pyramids  have  been  opened  and  examined,  the  dead  have 
been  taken  out  of  their  coffins  and  questioned,  both  the 
king  and  the  princess  who  are  supposed  to  have  played 
a  prominent  part  in  the  history  of  Moses  have  been 
found,  the  linen  bandages  in  which  they  had  been  wrapped 
have  been  removed,  and  the  corpses  can  be  seen  now  un- 
der ghiss  covers  at  the  museum  of  Bulaq  ;  their  faces  have 
been  photographed  and  compared  with  the  statues  which 
they  had  erected  for  their  own  glorification,  and  have  been 


MOSES   AND    HIS   TIME  17 

identified  ;  papyrus  scrolls  have  been  deciphered,  which 
contain  the  description  of  the  deeds  of  many  kings — but 
all  in  vain  ;  not  a  single  fact  was  gleaned  either  for  or 
against  the  biblical  account.  Except  the  identification  of 
two  towns,  Pithom  and  Rameses,  of  which  the  Bible 
speaks,  absolutely  nothing  has  been  discovered  ;  not  the 
least  mention  is  made  of  the  Hebrew  nation  ever  having 
lived  there,  nor  of  Moses,  neither  as  a  plain  Israelite  nor 
as  a  renowned  general,  nor  of  the  existence  of  a  people 
numbering  two  and  a  half  millions.  There  are  long  ac- 
counts of  an  invasion  of  shepherds  into  Egypt,  of  tlieir 
reign  and  of  their  final  expulsion,  but  not  the  least  proof 
has  been  forthcoming  to  connect  or  identify  the  Hyksos 
with  the  Hebrew  race.  From  the  unreliable  report  of 
Josephus,  which  he  has  taken  from  the  still  more  unrelia- 
ble statements  of  IManetho,  a  hypothetical  statement  is 
made  that  Moses  must  have  lived  at  the  close  of  the  19th 
dynasty,  either  under  the  kings  Rameses  HI.,  Amenmes, 
Mineptha,  Seti,  Septah,  or  Setnekht.  It  would  take  years, 
and  would  finally  yield  no  more  than  conjectural  results, 
should  I  enter  upon  a  detailed  description  of  the  "founds  " 
that  have  been  made  of  late  upon  Egyptian  soil,  and  to 
the  arguments  to  which  they  have  given  rise.  My  task  is 
an  entirely  different  one. 

Whatever  is  known  of  the  biography  of  Moses  you  know 
as  well  as  I  do.  I  am  not  able  to  add  one  iota  to  it.  It 
is  little  enough,  and  to  augment  the  number  of  hypoth- 
eses by  new  conjectures  might  gratify  our  imagination, 
but  would  bring  us  not  one  inch  nearer  the  truth.  It  is, 
therefore,  immaterial  to  us  to  know  when  and  where  Moses 
has  lived  ;  how  he  has  come  by  his  name  ;  whether  or  not 
he  has  written  and  left  a  biography  of  himself.  Some 
such  man  must  have  lived  in  the  early  times  of  Jewish 


18  dissolvijSg  views 

history,  and  he  left  such  an  imprint  upon  his  time  that 
it  never  faded  away,  but,  on  tlie  contrary,  became  the 
cause  for  his  apotlieosis.  What  I  consider  more  important 
for  us  to  know  is :  what  were  the  general  religious  views 
current  at  that  time  among  the  primitive  Hebrews  and 
among  their  neighbors ;  in  what  relation  did  they  place 
themselves  to  the  universe,  and  what  was  the  particular 
germ  which  produced  in  that  small  nation  the  develop- 
ment of  an  idea  so  different  from  that  of  others  ? 

The  results  which  so  far  have  been  gleaned  from  a 
knowledge  of  ancient  Egypt  annihilate  a  theory  formei'ly 
in  vogue,  that  the  Israelites  have  merely  copied  Egyptian 
customs,  and  that  whatever  is  good  in  Judaism  has  been 
derived  from  Egyptian  sources.  Judaism,  though  a  near 
neighbor  and  contemporary  with  Eg3'pt,  shows  in  its  vital 
points  the  exact  reverse  of  its  religious  principles. 
Egypt,  though  its  more  intelligent  inhabitants  may  have 
believed  in  one  God,  was  given  to  idolatry  and  filled 
its  temples  with  representations  of  their  divinities.  Jii- 
daism  opposed  idol-worship.  Egypt  believed  firmly  to  its 
last  day  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  its  return  to 
the  body,  and,  therefore,  always  preserved  so  carefully 
the  corpses  of  the  deceased  that  we  find  them  intact  even 
to  this  day.  Judaism  shows  but  few  traces  of  such  a  be- 
lief, and  even  they  died  out  in  course  of  time.  Sacrifices, 
rare  among  Egyptians,  were  customary  among  the  Jews  ; 
the  regal  authority,  held  in  the  highest  respect  in  Egypt, 
found  a  barren  soil  in  Palestine,  where  demociatic  institu- 
tions flourished,  and  kings  rose  only  temporaril}^  to  gen- 
eral acknowledgment.  A  man  learns  nothing  quicker 
than  to  enjoy  the  comforts  which  the  arts  provide.  If 
the  Israelites  as  a  people  were  for  so  many  centuries 
under    Egyptian    influence,    they    would    have    learned 


MOSES    AND    HIS    TIME  19 

to  accustom  themselves  to  the  high  civilization  which  un- 
deniably flourished  there  during  that  period.  But  even  at 
the  times  of  Solomon,  we  find  that  they  lacked  arts  of  all 
descriptions  ;  that  they  were  without  knowledge  of  archi- 
tecture, and  without  ambitictn  to  attain  such  culture. 
Palestine  offers  but  a  poor  soil  for  archaeological  re- 
searches, and  even  to  this  day  the  Israelites  have  shown 
no  predilection  for  the  plastic  arts.  Thus  it  stands  estab- 
lished beyond  doubt  that  the  Israelites  were  neither  a 
tribe  of  Egypt  nor  did  they  live  there  long  enough  to 
become  influenced  by  its  civilization.  We  have  for  too 
long  a  time  looked  back  upon  the  primitive  history  of  Is- 
rael as  upon  its  most  glorious  part ;  we  have  idealized 
their  condition,  their  accom]3lishments,  and,  above  all, 
their  leaders ;  we  have  treated  them  as  a  national  body 
that  had  risen  into  manhood  without  ever  having  had  a 
childhood,  or  without  ever  having  passed  through  an  em- 
bryonic state.  We  have  looked  upon  its  law-giver  as  a 
man  who  has  provided  them  with  laws  in  advance.  All 
such  ideas  we  must  give  up  in  a  historical  research.  We 
must  allow  ourselves  to  be  guided  by  daily  experience, 
and  judge  statements  according  to  their  probability.  We 
know  that  a  plant  is  not  at  once  root  and  stem  and  foli- 
age, but  that  it  is  first  a  germ,  and  develops  from  one 
formation  into  another  according  to  the  laws  of  evolution. 
Neither  does  a  nation  spring  into  existence  at  once  ;  if  we 
hear  nothing  of  it  before  it  has  reached  a  period  of  such 
ripeness  that  it  produces  literary  talent,  and,  having  be- 
come a  national  body,  begins  to  s[)eak,  this  does  not  im- 
ply that  it  has  not  passed  through  centuries  of  national 
infancy.  Laws,  moreover,  are  never  made  beforehand  to 
meet  future  wants  ;  they  spring  into  life  one  after  another 
when  necessitv  demands  them,  and  it  is  lono;  afterwards 
bifore  they  ar«  codified. 


20  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

To  form  for  us  a  picture  of  the  condition  of  primitive 
Israel  we  may  say  that  small  tribes  of  shepherds  must 
have  migrated  into  the  land  of  Canaan  at  unknown  times. 
They  may  have  come  from  the  same  stock  and  may  have 
brought  similar  notions  with  them  in  regard  to  the  ques- 
tions which  since  eternity  have  stirred  humauit3\  Some 
of  these  tribes  gained  a  settlement  sooner,  and  some 
later ;  a  fact  which  may  account  for  the  different  ages  of 
the  sons  of  Jacob,  and  that  the  tribe  of  Reuben,  by  claim- 
ing seniority,  rivalled  the  influence  of  the  larger  tribes  of 
Judah  and  Ephraim,  who  had  arrived  much  later.  They 
amalgamated  partly  witli  the  aboriginal  inhabitants ; 
partly  did  they  destroy  them,  and  the  memories  of  these 
struggles  have  offered  to  the  writers  of  later  times  abun- 
dant material  frOm  which  to  weave  an  interesting  story. 
Some  tribes,  for  all  we  know,  may  have  come  from  Egypt ; 
they  may  have  crossed  the  desert,  and  thus  added  their 
reminiscences  to  those  that  were  current.  One  of  the 
leaders  of  these  tribes  may  have  gained  such  great  re- 
nown among  them  that  all  traditions  were  afterwards 
concentrated  upon  him,  and  that  when  a  codification 
of  all  the  fluctuating  laws  was  effected  all  these  laws 
were  ascribed  not  only  to  him  as  a  mere  law-giver,  but  as 
a  messenger  of  God.  It  would  be  utterly  impossible  to 
trace  from  the  meagre  sources  at  our  disposal  the  origin 
and  time  of  every  law,  or  to  give  a  better  description  of 
the  prehistoric  life  of  the  nation.  You  may  as  well  try 
to  describe  the  imj^erceptible  growth  of  a  plant,  and  to  fix 
the  second  when  the  first  leaflet  has  burst  from  its  bud. 
What  we  may  learn  from  an  unprejudiced  study  of  our 
only  witness  — the  Bible  —  may  be  summed  up  as  follows  : 
The  world  was  to  the  primative  Israelite  of  very  small 
circumference  j  he  knew  but  few  neighboring  tribes  and 


MOSES    AND    HIS    TIME  21 

few  people  beyond  his  confines;  what  lay  beyond  the 
Mediterranean  Sea  was  unknown  to  him  ;  he  represented 
the  forces  of  nature  by  many  divinities ;  rocks  were  wor- 
sliipped,  and  holy  places  abounded  in  the  land.  Every  tribe 
liad  its  own  deity,  and  in  Dan,  Bethel,  Bersheba,  Shiloh,  on 
Mount  Gerisim  and  Karmel,  were  gods  worshipped  even 
in  the  latest  times,  not  to  speak  of  the  mountain-tops  and 
valleys  where  people  would  assemble  to  offer  sacrifices  to 
the  gods.  Out  of  the  number  of  tribal  gods  Yahweh 
finally  arose  as  the  national  god  of  all  Israel.  The  knowl- 
edge and  introduction  of  this  god  was  ascribed  to  Moses, 
the  most  prominent  of  all  leaders.  Yahweh  was  consid- 
ered a  god  more  powerful  than  the  rest ;  a  god  who  could 
successfully  compete  even  with  the  strong  gods  of  Egypt 
and  Assyria ;  he  was  described  as  a  God  who  had  taken 
special  interest  in  their  nation,  had  given  them  their 
land ;  he  had  accompanied  them  in  their  former  wander- 
ings, and  had,  therefore,  a  right  to  their  acknowledgment. 

Yahweh  would  not  have  been  more  than  any  other 
of  the  man}^  gods  of  antiquity,  nor  would  his  cult  have 
produced  a  higher  standard  of  morality  had  not  two  at- 
tributes raised  him  above  the  rest.  Different  from  other 
gods,  he  was  invisible  ;  no  person  could  see  him  and  live, 
and  even  Moses,  his  favorite,  had  never  beheld  him.  He 
would  not  suffer  any  representation  of  his  form,  nor  would 
he  allow  that  any  other  god  should  be  worshipped  by  his 
side.  This  struck  the  death-blow  to  idolatry,  and  paved 
the  way  for  a  purer  conception  of  the  Deity. 

In  the  second  place,  Yahweh  was  identified  with  the 
principle  of  morality ;  he  loved  goodness  and  liated  in- 
iquity, and  desired  man  to  strive  after  holiness  and  per^ 
fection.  Thus  Yehovism  contained  the  first  germ  of  an 
ethical    plant    which    in    after    years    developed     into    a 


22  DISSOLV^ING    VIEWS 

tree  under  the  sliachnv  of  which  the  nations  of  the  earth 
can  find  room. 

It  is  not  at  all  certain  that  the  great  men  of  antiquity 
must  have  anticipated  the  wants  of  the  future,  or  that 
they  must  have  enjoyed  the  knowledge  we  possess  to- 
day, or  that  they  must  have  had  as  pure  and  lofty  a 
conception  of  God  and  religion  as  we  have.  The  great- 
ness of  a  man  stands  in  proportion  to  the  time  in  which 
he  has  lived  and  of  which  he  has  been  the  child.  It 
may  be  true  that  a  genius  will  prove  himself  a  genius  at 
all  times,  and  if,  for  example,  Moses  could  be  reborn 
and  could  live  among  us,  he  would  probably  become  as 
great  now  as  he  was  among  his  contemporaries,  that 
is,  he  would  overreach  us  all  in  his  conceptions  and 
aspirations ;  but  we  should  deny  at  once  the  ability  of 
humanity  for  progress  should  we  allow  that  we  have  not 
risen  far  above  the  Moses  who  lived  three  thousand  j^ears 
ago  in  science,  art,  and  not  less  in  religion.  To  him,  or 
rather  to  the  writer  by  whom  we  are  informed  about  him, 
the  conception  of  Yahweh  was  not  as  pure  as  it  grew  in  a 
later  period ;  to  him  he  was  still  an  irascible  and  arbitrary 
god,  a  god  that  would  bless  but  also  curse.  Though 
standing  far  above  other  divinities,  he  had  not  yet  been 
entirely  divested. of  the  attributes  which  a  lower  civiliza- 
tion had  fixed  upon  their  gods.  He  was  still  to  be  ap- 
peased by  sacrifices,  he  was  still  expected  to  foretell  the 
future  when  properly  questioned.  Three  times  a  year 
every  male  person  was  bound  to  worship  him  at  a  chosen 
place.  Though  family  life  was.  sacred  to  him,  and  the 
lewd  practices  of  oriental  nations  an  abomination,  polyg- 
amy was  still  a  legal  institution,  and  in  many  cases  even 
encouraged. 

To  sum  it  up,  we  find  that  Judaism  or  Mosaism  in  its 


MOSES    AND    HIS    TIME  23 

earliest  stage  meant  and  stood  for  something  else  than 
what  it  meant  and  stood  a  few  hundred  years  later ;  that 
it  was  then  the  ver}'  first  glimpse  of  a  better  knowledge 
of  God,  the  very  first  attempt  to  rise  from  superstition. 
A  person  might  have  been  considered  then  a  religious 
man  if  he  promptly  offered  his  sacrifices,  paid  his  tithes, 
kept  Sabbath  and  new  moon,  asked  no  other  oracle  for 
advice  but  Yah  well,  and  offered  homage  to  no  other 
divinity.  Intermarriage  was  then  common,  circumcision 
optional  and  even  neglected,  and  the  identity  of  religion 
with  ethics  had  just  begun  to  dawn  upon  the  inhabitants 
of  Canaan.  It  took  several  hundreds  of  years  before  the 
tribes  had  exchanged  their  roving  and  nomadic  dispositioji 
for  the  more  settled  habits  of  agricultural  life.  The  more 
the  different  clans  and  tribes  were  drawn  together  from 
political  necessity,  the  more  victoriously  arose  the  Yeho- 
vistic  idea,  until  it  triumphed  with  the  political  amalga- 
mation of  the  tribes  into  one  nation.  Greater  and  greater 
grew  the  numbers  of  those  who  objected  to  idolatry  and 
found  comfort  in  the  belief  in  the  one  invisible  God  of 
Israel.  More  and  more  became  apparent  the  feebleness 
of  gods  of  wood  and  stone,  and  the  absurdity  of  worship- 
ping them,  and  higher  and  higher  rose  the  perception  of 
Man's  duties  to  God  and  his  fellow-beings. 

When  the  battle  was  over,  when,  with  the  return  from 
Babylonian  captivity,  a  new  state  of  development  was 
reached,  the  internal  labors  and  struggles  of  five  centu- 
ries were  treated  by  the  writers  of  that  age  not  retrospec- 
tively, but  prospectively.  An  old  age  was  assigned  to  the 
earliest  acquisitions,  and  out  of  the  crowd  of  men  who  had 
contributed  to  the  success  and  final  triumph  of  Yah  well 
arose  the  grand  figure  of  Moses,  the  leader,  the  legislator, 
the    servant  of   God,   the    hero    who    had    sacrificed    the 


24  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

greater  part  of  his  life  to  the  welfare  of  his  nation,  the 
modest  man  for  whom  had  been  reserved  not  even  a  grave 
in  the  land  of  Israel. 

At  such  a  distance  of  time,  and  with  such  meagre 
sources  as  are  at  our  disposal,  it  is  difficult  to  determine 
how  much  humanity  is  indebted  to  him ;  but  if  he  had 
done  nothing  else  than  to  hurl  into  mankind  the  ideas  that 
God,  no  matter  whether  tribal  or  universal,  is  invisible, 
that  he  must  not  be  represented  or  symbolized  in  any 
form,  and  that  he  is  identical  with  morality,  such  alone 
would  entitle  him  to  a  high  rank  among  the  benefactors 
of  humanity  and  to  the  gratitude  of  all  mankind. 


III. 

EZRA    AND    HIS   TIIME 

If  ever  you  have  •turned  your  eyes  contemplatively 
upon  the  jDast,  and  especially  upon  the  events  which,  taken 
together,  have  made  what,  in  general 'parlance,  we  call 
"our  life,"  you  ca*niot  liave  failed  observing  what  seems  to 
be  a  well  appointed  plan,  in  conformity  with  which  your 
existence  has  been  shaped.  Every  event  seems  to  have 
formed  into  a  link  of  a  long  chain  of  causes  and  effects ; 
if  one  had  Jiot  happened,  the  other  would  or  coukl  not 
have  occurred  ;  what  at  first  has  appeared  as  an  accident 
is  afterwards  seen  as  the  necessary  preparatory  step  for 
some  important  act  of  ours,  be  it  for  good  or  evil.  While 
we  feel  sure  that  if  one  thing  had  not  happened  the  other 
would  not  have  occurred,  the  conclusion  at  which  we 
arrive  after  such  a  retrospective  meditation  is  that  the 
nature  of  the  events  forming  "  our  life  "  has  not  been 
accidental,  but  that  we  have  been  made  to  do  what  we 
did  after  a  preconcerted  plan  over  which  we  had  no 
control.  Whenever  this  providential  current  has  lifted 
us  upwards,  whenever  our  conditions  have  been  improved 
by  that  chain  of  events,  the  modest  among  us  will  praise 
the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  Him  who  has  designed  the 
plan  and  carried  it  out  so  advantageously  to  ourselves, 
while  the  vain  will  ascribe  tlieir  successful  career  to  their 
own  wisdom,  thrift,  courage,  or  industry.  When,  how- 
over,  the  same  current  has  whirled  us  do wii wards,  when 

25 


26  '      DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

what  we  call  "  our  "  plans  have  miscarried,  we  hesitate,  on 
the  one  hand,  to  lay  the  blame  at  our  own  door,  and,  on 
the  other,  we  fail  to  see  that  the  plans  of  Providence  were 
so  wisely  framed  as  we  should  have  expected  and  we 
lament,  though  in  vain,  over  "  what  might  have  been  "  — 
if  —  mark  the  ponderous  little  word  —  if  this  or  that 
event  had  or  had  not  occurred.  To  make  myself  better 
understood,  let  me  give  you  an  example  :  If  thirteen  years 
ago  I  had  not  accidentally  read  in  a  paper  that  this  con- 
gregation were  desirous  of  engaging  a  minister  to  carry 
out  what  then  thfey  called  reform  ;  if,  again,  accidentally 
I  had  not  decided  to  apply  in  person  for  the  position, 
and  if  a  thousand  other  ifs  had  not  entered  into  the 
combination,  I  would  not  stand  before  you  and  address 
you  to-night.  As  long  as  my  present  condition  gives  me 
satisfaction,  I  naturally  look  upon  the  events  which  pro- 
cured it  for  me  as  upon  a  wise  dispensation  of  a  Divine 
Providence.  I  know  only  of  this  one  chain  of  events 
which  have  linked  themselves  to  the  first  named  accident 
and  whereas  all  other  combinations  which  might  have 
occurred,  if  events  had  not  taken  this  one  t;ourse,  are  un- 
known to  me,  and  left  to  the  wildest  flight  of  my  fancy,  I 
am  liable  at  one  and  the  same  time  to  glory  in  my  achieve- 
ments when  considering  that  T  might  have  done  worse 
and  discontentedly  disparage  them  at  the  thought  that  I 
might  have  done  much  better.  I  hope  you  will  now  fulh' 
understand  me  when  I  apply  the  same  experience  to  the 
life  of  Judaism.  I  shall  leave  it  an  open  question  to . 
decide  whether  the  life  of  individmjls,  nations,  and  institu- 
tions is  governed  after  a  preconcerted-  plan  or  whether  it 
is  the  play  of  accident ;  whether  the  chain  of  events  is 
forged  by  the  hammer  of  fate  or  whether  it  is  woven  by 
the  nimble  fingers  of  chance,  the  fact  remains  that,  as  we 


EZRA    AND    HIS    TIME  27 

look  back  upon  the  past,  we  know  only  of  the  one  chain 
of  events  which  has  been  formed,  no  matter  by  what,  fate 
or  chance,  and  the  millions  of  other  possible  combinations 
are  mere  conjectures,  children  of  our  imagination.  To 
determine  what  might  have  been,  if  some  event  had  not 
occurred,  some  man  had  not  gained  celebrity,  some  law 
had  not  been  passed,  or  some  precedent  had  not  been  es- 
tablished, may  cause  us  amusement  in  an  idle  hour,  but 
will  never  be  followed  by  any  practical  result.  Accord- 
ing to  our  wishes,  we  may  either  feel  sorry  that  a  certain 
occurrence  has  taken  place  and  feel  assured  that,  if  it  had 
not,  all  would  have  turned  out  for  the  better,  or  we  may 
glory  in  it  and  praise  Divine  Providence  for  having  done 
the  very  best  for  us. 

I  shall  now  bring  before  you  the  picture  of  a  man  as 
the  exponent  of  a  time  which  has  formed  an  auspicious 
link  in  the  history  of  Judaism.  If,  on  the  one  hand,  Ezra 
had  not  existed,  or  if  he  had  not  forced  his  views,  narrow 
as  they  may  appear  to  us,  upon  his  time,  it  is  questionable 
wdiether  Judaism  and  its  children,  Christianity  and  Mo- 
hammedanism; would  have  existed  to-day.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  Ezra  had  been  a  man  of  broader  views,  Juda- 
ism might  have  been  to-day  the  ruling  religion  on  earth. 
Ezra,  however,  has  been  the  Ezra  he  was.  not  more,  not 
less.  He  has  been  welded  into  the  only  chain  of  circum- 
stances which  history  records  either  by  a  preordained 
fate  which  intended  beforehand  that  all  should  come-  to 
pass  as  it  eventually  did,  or  by  chance  which  drifted  the 
current  of  events  unintentionally  into  the  direction  which, 
as  we  see,  it  has  taken.  Though  the  haze  which  hangs 
over  the  Jewish  nation  is  not  yet  removed  entirely,  m'c 
begin  to  discern  at  least  sojyie  historical  figures  and  events 
when    we   arrive   at  the   [)eriod  of  Ezra's  activity.     We 


28  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

know  nothing  more  about  him  than  wliat  we  find  in  the 
biblical  books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  and  what  Josephus 
tells  of  him.  Still,  some  of  the  leading  events  appear  to 
us  in  clearer  outlines.  The  names  and  deeds  of  the  Per- 
sian kings  under  whom  he  lived  have  become  familiar  to 
us.  Through  Grecian  sources  we  have  obtained  at  least 
a  more  detailed  description  of  the  customs  of  that  time 
and  of  the  political  changes  which  have  disturbed  the 
peace  of  this  age.  We  can  accept  as  authentic  the  fact 
that  between  the  mill-stones  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia 
the  small  Jewish  kingdom  was  crushed,  and  that  some 
of  the  inhabitants  of  this  country,  in  accordance  with 
ancient  j^olicy,  were  transplanted  to  vacant  districts  in 
the  interior  of  Asia,  while  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
colonists  were  sent  to  settle  in  Canaan.  Beyond  offer- 
ing the  fact  that  such  a  process  of  transcolonization  has 
taken  place,  our  sources  are  silent,  or  cannot  be  relied 
upon.  All  the  details  of  such  a  transaction  are  covered 
with  darkness,  and  all  we  know  with  some  certaint}'  is 
that  when  Cj'rus,  the  Persian  conqueror,  made  himself 
master  of  Babylonia,  he  found  large  Jewish  colonies  both 
in  the  capital  and  in  the  country.  How,  within  the  few 
years  of  the  reported  captivity,  the  exiles  could  have 
become  so  prosperous  that  their  representatives  were 
found  in  the  most  secret  council-chambers  of  the  kings  is 
as  yet  an  unsolved  riddle,  unless  we  ascribe  it,  as  we 
usually  do  in  such  cases,  to  the  direct  intervention  of 
God.  It  seems  that  when  Cyrus  planned  the  conquest  of 
Egypt,  which  his  son,  Cambyses,  afterwards  carried  out, 
he  wished  to  settle  at  the  confines  of  the  desert,  which  he 
had  to  cross,  a  friendly  people  who  were  ready  to  sujDply 
his  army  with  provisions  and  to  cover  a  possible  retreat. 
He  encouraged,  therefore,  the  Babylonian  Jews  to  return 


EZRA   AND    HIS   TIME  29 

to  the  land  of  their  forefathers.  That  the  yearning  for 
such  a  return  must  not  have  been  so  strong  as  we  are 
made  to  believe  is  proven  by  the  fact  that  after  consider- 
able urging  and  a  long  delay  only  one  caravan  was 
started.  It  consisted  of  some  priestly,  levitical,  and  aristo- 
cratic families  who,  not  having  succeeded  in  Babylonia, 
hoped  to  succeed  better  at  home.  It  was  protected  by  a 
detachment  of  Persian  soldiers  and  headed  by  Serubabel, 
a  descendant  of  David,  and  some  five  months  later  it  ar- 
rived safely  in  Palestine,  the  nucleus  for  a  new  common- 
wealth, to  build  up  the  country  and,  before  all,  Jerusalem 
and  the  temple.  The  expectations  with  which  that  cai-a- 
van  had  started  were,  however,  disappointed.  The  Baby- 
lonian settlers,  proud  of  their  aristocracy,  their  priestly 
descent,  and  of  the  protection  of  the  Persian  court,  refused 
to  enter  into  a  political  affiliation  with  the  northern  colo- 
nists, the  Samaritans,  who  had  been  transplanted  much 
earlier  into  the  country.  Strife  arose  between  these  near 
neighbors  ;  under  great  difficulties  was  the  temple  built, 
and  under  still  greater  difficulties  was  Jerusalem  for- 
tified ;  neither  was  the  march  of  the  Persian  armies  on 
their  way  to  and  from  Egypt  a  blessing  to  the  country, 
and  the  young  colony  languished  through  inward  strife 
and  was  impoverished  by  the  movements  of  the  hostile 
armies. 

We  have  seen  that,  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
through  Nebuchadnezzar,  Yahweh  had  risen  already  to 
an  acknowledgment  as  the  national  God  of  Israel.  From 
the  moment  that  the  horizon  of  the  Jews  had  widened 
through  their  conjiection  with  larger  countries,  the  sphere 
of  tlieir  God  became  also  enlarged.  In  their  conception 
he  grew  now  into  a  God  of  the  universe.  The  more  the 
feebleness  of  the  Babylonian  gods,  made  of  stone    and 


30  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

wood,  had  become  apparent  by  the  downfall  of  that  em- 
pire, the  more  our  ancestors  became  convinced  that  their 
conception  of  the  invisible  God,  the  ruler  of  heaven  and 
earth,  was  the  correct  one.  In  connection  with  this  con- 
ception of  God,  the  idea  spread  that  their  great  national 
calamity  must  have  been  a  consequence  of  the  idolatry  in 
which  their  ancestors  had  indulged.  The  few  colonists 
who  had  been  persuaded  to  return  to  Palestine,  as  well  as 
the  rest  that  remained  in  Babylonia  (and  who  afterwards 
spread  over  all  the  provinces  of  the  Persian  empire),  be- 
came convinced  that  the  wrath  of  God  was  now  over,  and 
that  he  would  restore  to  them  the  traditional  glories  and 
prosperity'  of  the  Davidian  kingdom,  provided  they  would 
worship  him  and  no  other,  and  obey  his  commands. 

Comparing  their  pure  conceptions  of  God  with  those 
of  their  neighbors,  a  spirit  of  caste  was  born  among  them, 
which  afterwards  became  the  remarkable  characteristic 
trait  of  the  Jewish  nation.  They  imagined  that  God  had 
chosen  them  of  all  nations  to  be  his  own  people  ;*  that,  not 
unlike  the  priestly  castes  of  all  countries,  who  pretended 
to  be  the  chosen  favorites  of  some  god,  and  who  kept 
themselves  isolated  from  intercourse  with  their  fellow- 
citizens,  Israel  should  form  a  select  priesthood  of  Yahweh, 
and  keep  itself,  as  such,  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  na- 
tions. When,  however,  in  spite  of  these  illusions,  the 
young  colony  was  not  seen  to  prosper,  when  God  still 
seemed  to  have  withdrawn  his  hand  from  his  people,  the 
only  cause  for  the  divine  reticence  seemed  to  be  that 
Israel  did  not  yet  fulfil  the  duties  which  Yahweh  had  a 
right  to  expect  of  his  people. 

Ezra,  a  descendant  of  a  priestly  family,  and  born  in 
Babylonia,  formed,  therefore,  the  resolution  of  regener- 
ating Israel,  and  of  thus  establishing  better  terms  between 


EZRA    AND    HIS    TIME  31 

God  and  his  cliosen  people.  Furnished  witli  letters  of 
recommendation  from  the  Persian  court,  he  collected 
another  caravan,  mostly  composed  of  priests,  and  migrated 
with  them  into  Palestine,  to  become  the  father  and 
founder  of  that  Judaism  which  was  not  only  destined  for 
a  life  of  several  hundred  years,  but  which  has  left  its 
mark  upon  humanity  to  this  very  dny. 

Ezra  was  a  zealot,  and,  like  all  enthusiasts,  less  of  a 
genius  than  of  a  conscientious  worker.  He  may  have 
understood  well  enough  what  his  own  time  needed,  but 
he  had  no  understanding  of  what  the  future  would  de- 
mand. Born  and  brought  up  a  priest,  his  intellectual 
horizon  was  limited  by  priestly  prejudices.  He  saw  ev- 
erything through  the  eyes  of  a  priest ;  he  felt  and  conse- 
quently acted  like  a  priest.  He  followed  an  ideal,  but  lie 
would  not  allow  the  same  privilege  to  others,  and  de- 
manded that  every  one  should  see  things  as  he  did.  His 
ideal  was  that  Israel  should  become  a  nation  of  priests,  a 
holy  people,  and  to  the  -realization  of  this  conception  he 
devoted  his  whole  life.  Fortunately,  he  did  not  stand 
alone,  but  was  ably  seconded  in  his  endeavors  by  Nelie- 
miah,  another  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  same  ideal ;  a 
man  who,  as  he  tells  us  himself,  had  given  up  the  most 
influential  position  at  the  court  of  King  Artaxerxes  to  be- 
come the  governor  of  poverty-stricken  Palestine.  We 
cannot  rely  entirely  upon  the  story  of  their  adventures  as 
it  is  told  by  them  or  their  historians,  but  we  may  glean  a 
few  facts  from  them  which  are  undeniably  characteristic  of 
the  men  of  their  time. 

The  greatest  and  most  remarkable  work  accomplished 
by  Ezra  is  the  collection  and  editing  of  all  those  liter- 
ary products  which  were  current  among  the  people  about 
that  time.      What  sources  he   consulted,  how  many  co- 


32  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

laborers  he  had,  how  long  it  had  taken  him  and  them  to 
prepare  the  work,  or  how  mucli  he  or  his  adjuncts  have 
added  to  or  taken  away  from  the  originals,  we  do  not 
know.  All  we  know  is  that  suddenly  Ezra  claimed  to  be 
in  possession  of  a  book  in  which  all  the  laws  which  God 
had  given  to  Moses  were  contained.  This  settled  at 
once  the  great  question  which  troubled  the  Israelites  of 
that  time  :  "  What  must  we  do  in  order  to  be  reconciled 
with  our  God  ?  "  Nobody  seemed  to  have  known  at  that 
time  of  such  a  book,  and  it  was  great  news  to  the  people 
when  he  read  to  them  some  portions  of  it  at  the  occasion 
of  a  great  festival.  From  that  moment  it  was  understood 
that  God  had  made  known  his  will  to  Moses,  and  had  or- 
dered him  to  preserve  it  in  writing ;  that  the  sacred  scroll 
had  been  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation,  and 
that  now  it  was  here ;  every  one  who  had  eyes  could  see 
it,  and  every  one  who  was  able  to  read  could  read  what 
God  demanded  of  him.  To  facilitate  the  latter,  Ezra 
changed  the  Hebrew  letters  into  the  plainer  Assyrian 
letters,  and  what  we  now  call  Hebrew  characters  are,  in 
fact,  Assyrian  characters.  The  Samaritans  alone,  and 
they  objected  to  such  a  reform  as  an  innovation,  pre- 
served the  old  style  of  writing ;  and  when  they  too  pro- 
duced a  book  purporting  to  contain  the  will  of  God, 
that  book  (the  Samaritan  Bible)  was  written  in  the  old, 
genuine  Hebrew  characters.  Thus  the  Bible  was  born, 
and  with  it  the  belief  in  the  divine  origin  of  that  book. 

What  an  immeasurable  influence  this  important  achieve- 
ment of  Ezra  had  upon  the  formation  of  '  religious 
thought,  not  only  among  Jews,  but,  in  the  course  of  time, 
amonof  one-half  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  is  so  well 
known  that  I  need  not  dwell  upon  it.  Where  would 
Christianity  and  Mohammedanism  be  to-day  if  Ezra  had 


EZRA    AND    HIS    TIME  33 

not  introduced  the  Bible  as  a  written  message  of  the  will 
of  God  to  man  ?  Was  it  by  accident  or  by  force  of  pre- 
ordained fate  that  such  a  book  was  published  ?  Who 
knows  ?  We  can  simply  state  the  fact,  and  it  is  best  to 
reject  as  fruitless  all  conjecture  of  what  might  have  been 
if  this  event  had  not  taken  place. 

Another  introduction,  we  may  call  it  an  innovation,  of 
Ezra,  was  the  institution  of  the  Sabbath.  The  Sabbath 
seems  to  have  -been  little  if  at  all  observed  at  his  time. 
Whether  it  was  introduced  by  him  as  entirely  new, 
whether  he  had  adopted  it  as  a  former  Babylonian  or 
Persian  institution,  or  whether  it  had  been  a  Jewish  cus- 
tom from  the  beginning,  we  can  scarcely  ascertain  to-day ; 
the  fact  is  that  at  Ezra's  time  neither  Jewish  farmers,  ar- 
tisans, nor  traders  observed  such  a  day,  and  that  the  most 
stringent  measures  were  required  to  compel  the  people  to 
rest  on  the  Sabbath.  Even  after  the  law  was  passed 
prohibiting  all  work  on  the  Sabbath  day,  within  the  city, 
people  would  go  outside  the  city  walls  and  buy  of  foreign 
traders  who  exhibited  their  wares  for  sale.  Not  until  these 
traders  were  compelled  to  close  their  stalls,  and  forbidden 
to  sell  goods  on  the  day  of  rest  appointed  by  the  State, 
and  not  nntil  buyer  and  seller  were  put  under  a  heavy 
fine,  did  Ezra  succeed  in  making  the  Sabbath  day  what  it 
afterwards  was  —  a  landmark  of  Judaism. 

There  is  no  question  but  that  the  institution  of  the 
Sabbath  is  one  of  the  best  and  most  salutary  measures 
with  which  humanity  has  ever  been  blessed.  There  can 
be  no  question  that  a  man  needs  a  day  out  of  seven  for 
spiritual  and  bodily  recreation.  Nor  can  there  be  the 
least  doubt  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  government  to 
enact  proper  legislation  to  that  effect.  It  is  immaterial 
to  us  from  whence  Ezra  has  received  his  inspiration.     We 


34  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

know  only  this  much,  that,  through  him  and  through  the 
Jewish  nation,  the  principle  of  the  Sabbath,  the  principle 
of  one  day's  rest  out  of  seven,  has  made  a  circuit  around 
the  world,  and  is  now  an  established  fact  among  the  civil- 
ized nations  of  the  earth. 

When,  about  a  year  ago,  the  legislators  of  this  state  re- 
vised the  Sunday  laws,  a  great  deal  of  complaint  was 
heard  from  the  part  of  those  of  our  friends  who  thought 
that  their  citizens'  rights  had  been  curtailed  and  their 
liberty  of  conscience  disregarded.  It  is  true  that  they 
are  hindered  by  the  provision  of  the  law  in  the  pursuit  of 
an  otherwise  legitimate  business  on  a  day  which  is  not 
sacred  to  them,  nor  do  I  consider  the  Sunday  laws  as  they 
were  framed  last  year  on  Beacon  Hill  a  model  of  legisla- 
tive wisdom ;  but,  to  be  fair,  Ezra  was  guided  by  the  same 
considerations  in  his  day,  and  did  exactly  the  same  thing 
that  we  censure  in  our  legislation.  The  minority,  or  the 
foreign  traders,  who  cared  as  little  or  less  for  a  Jewish  Sab- 
bath than  we  might  feel  for  the  Christian  Sunday,  were 
compelled  by  him  to  submit  to  the  laws  passed  and  ac- 
cepted by  the  majority.  They  had  to  make  the  best  of  it, 
and  so  have  we. 

A  third  and  still  more  stringent  measure  was  carried 
by  Ezra.  Intermarriage  seems  to  have  been  not  an  ob- 
jectionable practice  in  his  days.  Even  the  colonists  who 
had  returned  under  Serubabel  had  intermarried  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  land  without  the  least  pang  of  con- 
science. Whether  or  not  Ezra  was  married,  we  do  not 
know.  From  his  history  it  seems  that  he  was  not.  In 
order  to  promote  the  priestly  isolation  of  the  whole  peo- 
ple, he  objected  to  intermarriage.  He  first  exhorted  them 
in  a  friendly  manner,  and  afterwards  forced  them  through 
the  edicts  of  Nehemiah,  the  governor,  to  break  off  their 


EZRA    AND    HIS    TnfE  35 

alliances  witli  foreign  women,  to  divorce  the  wives  whom 
they  had  taken  previous  to  his  arrival,  and  to  return  them 
with  their  children  to  their  relatives.  It  requires  a  high 
degree  of  bigotry  and  of  religious  fanaticism  to  advocate 
and  cai-ry  through  a  measure  which  must  have  cut  so 
deeply  into  every  household ;  and  while  many  may  praise 
and  applaud  the  rigorism  of  Ezra,  I  could  never  help 
shuddering  at  such  an  act  of  inhumanity,  nor  could  I  help 
admiring  the  noble  conduct  of  the  many  who  at  that  time 
severed  the  ties  of  communion  with  their  people  and  went 
into  exile  with  their  alien  wives  and  children,  rather  than 
to  thrust  them  upon  the  mercy  of  a  cold  world.  The 
measure,  however,  was  carried,  and  ever  since  that  time 
intermarriage  has  been  looked  upon  among  Jews  as  a 
stigma  if  not  as  a  crime.  Israel,  it  is  true,  has  been  pre 
served  through  this  act,  but  it  has  remained  isolated  to 
this  ver}'  day. 

Two  views  open  before  us  in  regard  to  the  conduct  of 
Ezra,  whicli  seems  unpardonable  from  our  stand-point.  If 
Ezra  had  been  less  rigorous,  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
the  young  and  small  colony  would  have  been  dissolved 
among  the  nations,  and  been  lost  in  the  current  of  time, 
and  this  is  exactly  the  stand-point  which  many  take  in  our 
flays,  when  the  very  problem  has  risen  again  into  promi- 
nence and  has  become  one  of  the  burning  questions  of  the 
day.  "■If  we  open  the  flood-gates,"  they  say,  "and  mix 
by  intermarriage  with  non-Jews,  Judaism  will  be  swept 
from  the  earth  in  less  than  two  generations,"  and  who  can 
prove  that  their  fears  are  groundless  ?  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  Ezra  had  entered  upon  a  more  liberal  policy  ;  if  he 
had  been  broad  enough  to  see  in  his  Judaism  a  i-eligion 
that  would  elevate  all  humanity ;  if  he  had  grasped  its 
spirit  rather   than   the   letter ;    if  he   had   endeavored  to 


36  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

spread  it  among  the  nations  rather  than  to  preserve  it  as 
the  distinguishing  inheritance  of  a  small,  isolated  people  ; 
if  in  consequence  of  such  broader  views  he  would  have 
encouraged  intermarriage  instead  of  repressing  it,  who 
knows  but  that  Judaism  would  have  become  the  religion 
of  the  world,  and  neither  Christianity  nor  Islam  would 
ever  have  seen  the  light  of  da_y  ?  Why  should  we  to-day 
fear  for  the  existence  of  our  religion  so  long  as  we  are 
convinced  that  it  contains  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the 
truth  ?  Why  should  we  fear  competition,  knowing  that 
the  fittest  will  and  must  survive  ?  All  our  conjectures, 
however,  as  to  what  might  or  might  not  have  been,  or 
what  may  or  may  not  occur,  are  vain.  We  can  merely 
note  the  fact  that,  while  through  the  rigorism  of  Ezra 
Jewish  identity  has  been  preserved,  Israel  has  been  left 
isolated  and  impregnated  with  the  selfish  illusion  that  the 
Jewish  race  has  been  chosen  by  God  for  a  special  jjurpose, 
that  it  is  the  aristocracy  of  the  world,  and  that  it  stands 
higher  in  rank  than  the  rest  of  mankind.  We  shall  meet 
with  the  fruits  of  this  seed  further  on  in  our  researches. 

After  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  had  long  been  dead  and 
buried,  their  influence  still  prevailed.  They  had  given  to 
both  the  Jewish  race  and  the  Jewish  religion  an  entirely 
new  aspect.  Judaism  had  changed  entirely  under  their 
hands.  The  relio-ious  views  of  that  age  mav  be  described 
as  follows :  Yahweh  had  grown  into  a  universal  God,  and 
his  name  had  become  obliterated.  Only  once  a  year  it  was 
uttered  by  the  high-priest.  The  common  noun  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  proper  noun.  The  name  God,  or  my 
Lord,  had  been  substituted  for  Yahweh.  The  belief  had 
been  established  that  God  had  manifested  his  will  by  a 
written  document  —  the  Bible  —  of  which  every  word,  on 
account  of  the   divine   nature   of  the   book,  must  be  ac- 


EZRA    AND    HIS   TIME  37 

cepted  as  true.  Tliis  sacred  book  couluined  the  history  of 
the  world  in  general,  as  the  writer  imagined  it,  and  the 
history  of  Israel  in  particular.  This  latter  history  was 
made  and  fitted  to  be  a  proof  that  God  had  selected  Israel 
from  the  nations,  that  he  has  given  him  his  country,  and, 
more  than  that,  his  laws,  the  wisest  a  nation  ever  could 
possess.  As  long  as  Israelites  would  obe}'  promptly  the 
commandments  of  God,  so  long  would  he  protect  and 
guard  them. 

The  requirements  Avhich  a  good  Israelite  had  to  fulfil 
were  to  offer  sacrifices  to  no  other  god,  and  in  no  otlier 
place  than  in  Jerusalem  ;  to  appear  there  three  times  a 
year,  and  not  empty-lianded  ;  to  pay  promptly  all  taxes  ; 
to  rest  on  tlie  seventh  day  ;  to  allow  the  land  to  rest  every 
seventh  year,  and  not  to  intermarry  with  neighboring  na- 
tions. But,  also,  the  laws  of  morality  had  risen  to  a 
higher  appreciaton,  justice  was  to  be  strictly  enforced  and 
charity  was  to  be  extended  to  the  helpless,  the  stranger, 
the  widow,  and  tlie  orphan.  Family  life  was  to  be  sacred 
to  God ;  chastity  and  purity  were  considered  the  fitting 
attributes  of  a  priestly  people  ;  polygamy,  though  not  yet 
prohibited,  fell  into  desuetude.  Pra^'ers  to  the  father  of 
mankind  took  a  place  in  divine  worship  by  tlie  side  of 
sacrifices,  and  the  study  of  the  laws  of  God  as  the  source 
of  all  good  actions  rose  into  highest  prominence.  To  what 
extent  the  religious  status  of  the  Jews  at  that  historical 
period  was  indebted  to  Persian  and  indirectly  to  Buddhistic 
sources  we  shall  never  be  able  to  determine.  While  it  is 
a  fact,  on  the  one  hand,  that  all  human  achievements  ai'e 
due  to  the  combined  efforts  of  the  whole  race,  even  if  we 
cannot  trace  every  single  act  to  its  proper  source,  it  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  not  less  true  that  each  people  works  these 
influences  into  a  peculiar  tissue.     Judaism  may  have  been 


38  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

influenced  by  the  Persians,  or  by  other  nations,  for  all  we 
know  ;  but  it  has  not  raerel}^  reflected  their  views,  it  has 
woven  them  into  a  pattern  of  its  own  design  and  making. 
Wider  liad  grov/n  by  that  time  the  Jewish  horizon,  but 
not  yet  wide  enough.  It  was  still  hemmed  in  towards  the 
west.  The  time,  however,  was  not  far  off  when  also  the 
western  sky  should  open  to  the  Jews,  when  they  should 
come  in  contact  with  new  ideas  born  upon  a  western  soil, 
with  a  new  civilization  developed  upon  European  ground, 
with  Hellenism.  Be  it  accident  or  providential  design, 
the  Jew  has  been  introduced  into  the  world  not  by  Egyp- 
tian priests,  not  by  the  Magi  of  Persia,  but,  incredible  as 
it  may  seem,  by  the  hands  of  Greek  pliilosophers. 


IV. 

SIMON,   THE   LAST   OF   THE  MACCABEES 

It  is  good  advice,  well  founded  upon  experience,  that 
we  should  not  grieve  about  the  welfare  of  our  friends  and 
that  we  should  feel  assured  that  they  are  prosperous  as 
long  as  we  hear  nothing  of  them.  News  will  reach  us 
as  soon  as  they  are  in  trouble. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  one  that  is  to  be  highly 
regretted,  that  for  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
from  the  time  of  Ezra  to  that  of  the  Maccabees,  we  hear 
almost  nothing  of  the  life  and  religious  development  of 
the  Jewish  people.  That  period,  with  the  exception  of 
one  instance,  is  a  total  blank  in  history.  Though  time 
seems  to  have  no  value  for  us  after  it  has  passed,  and  though 
we  are  rather  lavish  in  our  disposition  of  it,  and  speak  of 
a  thousand  or  a  few  hundred  years  as  if  such  a  stretch  of 
time  meant  absolutely  nothing,  we  should  alwa3^s  bear  in 
mind,  when  speaking  of  some  historical  event,  what  an 
immense  amount  of  human  hapj)iness  and  misery  is  com- 
pressed into  one  single  year,  what  changes  in  views,  cus- 
toms, and  habits  are  likely  to  occur  in  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  and  how  many  more  must  have  taken  place 
within  three  long  centuries,  comprising  eight  generations. 
We  know  very  little  of  the  life  of  our  very  grandparents ; 
of  our  great  grandees  we  know,  in  most  cases,  nothing, 
not  to  speak  of  their  eight  precursors ;  but  have  not  thou- 
sands of  notable  events  occurred  during  their  time  ?     Did 


40  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

not  the  fountain  of  life  flow  as  richly  and  <is  rapidly  then 
as  it  runs  to-day?  It  is,  therefore,  almost  an  unpardon- 
able sin  to  treat  centuries  in  history  as  if  they  had  been 
days,  as  if  they  had  passed  by  without  producing  any 
changes  whatsoever ;  and  it  is  more  than  unpardonable,  it 
is  absurd,  to  presume  that  a  nation  has  lived  in  a  sort  of 
mummified  condition  for  three  centuries,  simply  because 
we  lack  a  record  of  that  time.  What  makes  that  fact  still 
more  remarkable  is  that  precisely  during  those  very  three 
centuries  the  whole  civilized  world  of  the  three  continents 
had  been  astir;  that  during  that  very  period  the  most 
renowned  lieroes,  philosophers,  and  historians  lived. 
Within  these  three  centuries  three  Persian  armies  were 
fitted  out,  and  sent  by  sea  and  on  land  to  conquer  Greece, 
and  two  or  more  Greek  expeditions  crossed  the  sea  to 
retaliate.  Darius,  Xerxes,  and  a  long  line  of  Persian 
kings,  Miltiades,  Themistocles,  Leonidas,  with  a  number 
of  other  Greek  heroes,  gained  immortal  renown ;  Athens 
was  destroyed,  and  arose  again  from  the  ashes,  the  mis- 
tress of  the  cultured  world.  Socrates  lived  and  died  a 
martyr  of  truth.  Plato  and  Aristotle  became  the  fathers 
and  founders  of  philosophical  schools;  Herodotus  wrote 
his  history,  jEschylus  and  Euripides  their  plays,  and 
Demosthenes  won  his  laurels  as  the  king  of  orators ; 
Alexander  the  Great  conquered  the  world  and  built  up  an 
empire  which,  like  a  card-house,  fell  to  pieces  quicker 
tlian  it  was  raised  ;  the  Phcjenicians  and  Carthaginians 
made  themselves  masters  of  the  sea,  and  unlimited  wealth 
flew  to  them  through  the  channels  of  commerce  ;  the 
Roman  republic,  small  and  insignificant  in  tlie  beginning, 
conquered  Italy,  Gaul,  and  Spain  ;  it  humiliated  Carthage 
and  was  about  to  make  itself  tlie  sole  heir  of  the  rem- 
nants that  were  left  of  Alexander's  empire.     Of  all  these 


SIMON,   THE   LAST    OF    THE    MACCABEES  41 

occurrences  we  have  ample  information,  but  of  the  life  of 
the  Jewish  nation  contemporary  with  these  events  we 
hear  not  a  word.  Before  the  time  of  Alexander,  the  Jews 
are  not  mentioned  at  all,  and  not  before  the  time  of  the 
Maccabees  is  notice  given  of  them.  Did  the}^  send  auxili- 
ary trooj^s  into  the  camp  of  Xerxes?  Did  Jewisli  regi- 
ments cross  the  Hellespont  and  participate  in  the  battles  of 
Thermopylse  or  Plateea  ?  Were  Jewish  vessels  destroyed 
in  the  naval  battle  of  Salamis?  We  do  not  know.  Asia 
Minor  was  tlien  swarming  with  Greek  settlers,  but  we 
cannot  tell  whether  even  the  renown  of  Greek  writers 
and  philosophers  had  ever  reached  Judea  before  the  time 
of  Alexander.  Palestine,  being  a  Persian  province,  must 
have  been  affected  more  or  less  by  the  changing  fortunes 
of  Persia,  but  we  have  no  means  of  estimating  to  what 
extent.  What  had  the  Jewish  people  been  doing  during 
these  centuries?  It  seems  that  the  noise  of  the  war  must 
not  have  reached  them.  They  paid  their  taxes  promptly, 
and,  in  all  probability,  they  bought  off  the  obligation  of 
their  personal  service  in  the  Persian  army  with  money. 
They  did  not  care  to  interfere  in  foreign  politics,  but 
minded  their  own  business.  They  cultivated  their  land 
and  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  an  undisturbed  peace.  The 
seed  sown  by  Ezra  had  germinated  under  highly  favorable 
conditions.  Tlie  Bible,  as  the  written  manifestation  of 
the  will  of  God,  had  become  an  object  of  the  highest 
veneration.  All  its  laws  fitted  to  their  present  isolated 
condition  ;  they  were  carried  out  to  the  letter,  and  if  we 
are  to  imagine  an  ideal  comiminity,  such  as  that  delineated 
in  the  Bible,  we  may  seek  and  shall  find  its  prototype  at 
this  special  time. 

These   few   centuries  were    the   sfolden   era  of  biblical 
Judaism.     In  their  isolation  from  the  rest  of  the  world 


42  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

our  ancestors  could  lead  a  life  wliich  was  becoming  to  a 
nation  of  priests.  The  fertile  soil  supplied  their  wants, 
and  the  liberal  offerings  which  were  sent  to  the  temple,  as 
well  as  pilgrimages  which  brought  Jewish  visitors  from 
Persia  in  large  numbers  to  the  Holy  City,  secured  to 
them  a  sort  of  opulence.  The  ordinances  of  the  law 
were,  therefore,  no  burden  to  them,  and  gladly  did  they 
even  increase  their  weight  by  additional  interpretations 
of  the  divine  will. 

It  is  a  pity  that  such  a  state  of  happiness  could  not  last 
forever.  A  body  of  people  can  withdi'aw  from  contact 
with  the  world  for  some  time,  but  not  forever.  A  nation 
can  remain  isolated  for  a  few  centuries,  but  the  time 
comes  when  the  outside  world  will  knock  at  its  doors  and 
demand  admittance.  The  pressure,  however,  will  not 
come  alone  from  without,  it  will  also  come  from  within. 
The  population,  if  not  checked  by  epidemics  or  wars,  will 
double  and  triple  within  two  hundred  j^ears,  and,  since 
the  confines  of  the  country  cannot  be  stretched  in  pro- 
portion, it  will  naturally  flow  over  and  the  happy  isola- 
tion will  tlms  reach  an  end.  The  biblical  laws  which 
proved  to  be  so  excellent  at  home  were  utterly  impracti- 
cable abroad  ;  they  forced  our  ancestors  to  form  secluded 
communities,  and  to  crowd  into  some  isolated  corner,  even 
under  the  roof  of  the  most  hospitable  of  hosts.  No  sooner 
did  they  leave  their  country,  their  sacred  patrimony,  the 
holy  ground,  than  they  felt  the  burden  of  the  law,  and 
were  compelled  to  ask,  not  for  rights,  but  for  privileges. 
Let  us  stop  here  for  a  moment  and  consider  the  conse- 
quences of  such  a  demand. 

Through  the  whole  history  of  the  Jews  we  shall  find 
that,  in  whatever  country  they  sought  a  domicile,  or  with 
whatsoever  princes  they  treated,  they  always  applied  for 


SIMON,    THE    LAST    OF   THE   MACCABEES  43 

sptwjial  legislation.  Jewish  ambassadors  were  ever  be- 
sieging the  lobbies  of  all  courts  for  the  sake  of  obtaining 
privileges  of  wliich  they  seienied  in  absolute  need,  and  for 
which  they  were  ready  to  pay  a  reasonable  sum.  Princes 
who  granted  them  their  })etitions  were  highly  exalted, 
while  kings  who  would  not  yield,  who  could  not  see  the 
need  of  special  legislation  which  would  benefit  only  a 
small  number  of  their  subjects,  or  who  would  cancel 
favors  granted  by  their  predecessors,  were  hated  as 
tyrants.  We  frequently  find,  therefore,  that  princes 
renowned  for  their  kindness,  for  their  humanity  and 
generosity,  are  depicted  by  Jewish  historians  as  the  most 
cruel  enemies  of  mankind. 

In  consequence  of  his  demand  for  special  legislation, 
the  Jew  excluded  himself  from  the  community  in  which 
he  chose  or  was  compelled  to  live.  He  remained  forever 
a  stranger  therein,  and,  what  was  still  worse,  he  made 
himself  conspicuous.  The  world  could  not  fail  to  see 
him  ;  and  his  constant  clamor,  not  for  rights,  but  for  priv- 
ileges, made  him  an  object  of  distrust,  and  chilled  the  love 
and  friendship  which  otherwise  might  have  sprung  up  be- 
tween himself  and  his  neighbor. 

The  Jew,  however,  accepting  the  divine  origin  of  the 
Bible,  and  thus  being  compelled  by  his  conscience  to  per- 
form every  ordinance  given  therein,  found  himself  in 
conflict  with  the  laws  and  customs  prevailing  in  the  land 
of  his  adoption.  The  alternative  was  left  to  him  eitlier  to 
return  to  the  land  where  his  laws  were  the  laws,  or  to 
submit  to  the  customs  of  liis  new  home.  He  could  choose 
neither,  and  tried  to  strike  the  golden  mean  by  asking  for 
privileges.  So  long  as  we  retain  this  dangerous  practice, 
so  long  as  we  continue  to  ask  for  exceptional  legislation, 
and  so  long  as  such  privileges  are  granted,  just  so  long 


44  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

shall  we  be  isolated,  so  long  will  prejudice  raise  its  head 
against  us,  so  long  shall  we  meet  with  distrust. 

It  had  been  the  policy  of  ancient  Asiatic  empires  to 
grant  to  each  province  its  autonomy,  and  thus  had  our 
ancestors  been  able  to  remain  in  their  happy  isolation  for 
more  than  two  hundred  years.  This  was  the  simplest 
policy  by  which  a  large  empire  could  be  formed,  and  the 
easiest  method  by  which  the  court  of  a  monarch  could  be 
enriched,  but  it  was  also  the  simplest  to  break  up  the 
conglomeration. 

If  Persia  had  not  been  composed  of  a  number  of  prov- 
inces, each  ruled  by  its  own  laws  and  not  connected  other- 
wise with  the  national  government  than  by  the  payment 
of  taxes,  Alexander  would  not  have  been  able  to  overturn 
it  with  his  twenty  thousand  Macedonians.  Nor  would 
the  empire  which  he  constructed  have  fallen  to  pieces  if 
the  young  hero  had  profited  by  that  lesson.  When  he 
appeared  before  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  he  was  received 
by  the  people  more  as  a  friend  than  as  an  enemy.  The 
bonds  which  had  connected  Judea  with  Persia  for  several 
hundred  j^ears  were  severed  in  less  time  than  it  had  taken 
Alexander  to  cut  the  Gordian  knot.  The  Macedonian 
king  seemed  to  have  been  as  much  pleased  with  his  recep- 
tion by  this  peculiar  little  people  as  they  seemed  to  have 
been  .with  their  guest.  As  he  was  about  to  found  the 
city  of  Alexandria,  he  encouraged  the  Jews  to  send  their 
surplus  population  to  that  place,  and  for  that  purpose  he 
granted  them  such  j^rivileges  as  they  deemed  necessary 
for  their  existence  upon  foreign  soil.  From  that  ver}' 
moment  the  happy  and  peaceful  life  of  the  Jewish  people 
was  gone  forever. 

Judea  was  now  drawn  into  politics.  While  its  inhabi- 
tants beofan  to  colonize  the  borders  of  the  Mediterranean 


SnrON.    THK    T,AS!T    OF    THE    MACCABEES  45 

Sea,  Greek  settlements  sprang  up  in  their  immediate 
vicinity.  The  Jew,  on  account  of  his  isolatory  laws,  could 
afford  to  be  a  farmer  only  at  home,  or  in  a  few  Babylonian 
districts.  On  African  or  European  soil  lie  could  not  com- 
pete with  his  neighbors  in  this  branch.  His  laws,  which 
he  considered  divine,  compelled  him  to  let  his  land  rest 
every  seventh  year ;  not  to  touch  of  its  fruits  until  a 
tithe  and  a  number  of  other  taxes  had  been  civen  :  to 
leave  a  corner  of  his  field  untouched  by  the  sickle,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor.  He  was  bound  to  observe  the  Sab- 
bath and  a  number  of  holidays;  and  all  this,  taken  to- 
gether, hindered  him  from  being  an  able  competitor.  By 
force  of  these  circumstances  he  was  compelled  to  learn  a 
new  trade,  one  which  he  could  manage  at  his  own  will, 
and  in  which  he  was  his  own  master.  The  farmer  turned 
merchant. 

Travelling,  and  a  frequent  intercourse  with  strangers, 
are  not  favorable  to  a  policy  of  isolation.  Greek  philos- 
ophy and  the  pleasant  Gi'eek  customs  found  a  friendly 
welcome  in  Palestine,  and  a  century  had  scarce  elapsed 
since  Alexander  had  set  his  foot  upon  Judean  ground, 
when  we  find  the  inhabitants  split  into  two  factions.  The 
one,  which  we  shall  call  the  Hellenists,  were  favoring  a 
closer  alliance  with  other  nations.  They  were  ready  to 
introduce  Greek  customs  and  to  break  the  secluded  circle 
which  made  life  abroad  unbearable.  They  could  not  see 
why  God,  who  was  everywhere,  should  not  be  adored  also 
in  other  cities ;  Avhy  temples  should  not  be  erected  to  his 
honor  in  many  places,  and  why  they  should  not  be  deco- 
rated with  the  productions  of  art,  as  were  the  Greek  teni- 
ples.  One  temple  had  already  been  erected  in  Egypt, 
which  drew  crowds  of  pious  worshippers.  They  had 
ceased  to  believe   that   Jerusalem  was  the  only  place  of 


46  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

God's  residence :  nor  did  they  see  an}'-  harm  in  a  p^'^lici- 
pation  in  the  divine  services  of  the  Greeks.  These  C^reek 
friends  never  believed  that  the  masterpieces  of  Phidias 
were  gods  indeed ;  quite  on  the  contrary,  the  most  con- 
scientious of  them  conceded  that  they  were  a  mere  solidi- 
fication of  the  conception  of  God.  Why  could  they  not 
combine  likewise  the  belief  in  the  one  invisible  God  of 
Israel  with  a  ceremonial  that  was  pleasing  to  the  senses 
at  the  same  time  ? 

The  other  party  was  composed,  to  some  extent,  of 
priests  who  were  afraid  to  lose  their  position  and  their 
income  by  a  multiplication  of  holy  shrines,  and  of  farmers 
who  had  never  seen  other  countries,  who  had  been 
brought  up  in  the  belief  that  God  would  avenge  ever}^ 
deviation  from  his  law,  the  inconveniences  of  which  they 
had  never  felt.  The  time  drew  nigh  when  these  two  fac- 
tions must  clash  against  each  other. 

The  unprecedented  growth  and  strength  of  Rome  had 
been  due  to  quite  a  different  policy  than  that  which  the 
Asiatic  nations  had  followed.  Rome  had  amalgamated 
every  new  province  which  it  acquired,  by  organizing  it 
under  its  laws  and  institutions ;  thus  it  had  become  a 
compact  unity  against  which  all  attacks  were  in  vain. 
After  the  destruction  of  Carthage,  Antiochus  the  Great, 
then  ruler  over  a  large  part  of  the  former  Macedonian 
empire,  found  himself  within  reach  of  the  greed  of  Rome. 
He  decided,  therefore,  to  adopt  the  policy  of  his  enemy, 
and  to  bind  together  the  many  provinces  over  which  he 
ruled,  b}^  the  ties  of  common  laws  and  customs,  that  he 
might  be  enabled  to  offer  a  firm  frOnt  to  the  approaching 
Roman  Colossus.  He  withdrew,  on  that  account,  the 
privileges  granted  to  his  provinces,  and,  listening  to  the 
advice  of  the  Hellenistic  party,  he  undertook  to  Hellenize 


SIMON,    THE    LAST   OF   THE   MACCABEES  17 

Judea  with  their  aid.  He  appointed  as  higli-priest  a  man 
who  was  willing  to  help  him  in  his  plans,  and  he  threw  an 
army  into  Jerusalem  which  was  to  give  force  to  the  regal 
edicts ;  thus  open  enmity  broke  out  between  the  two 
parties,  and  the  first  blood  was  shed  at  Modin,  wliere 
Mathatias,  a  priest  and  descendant  of  a  noble  family,  had 
raised  the  banner  of  revolt,  had  destroyed  an  altar  erected 
by  Hellenists,  and  had  killed  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
opposition  with  his  own  hands. 

It  is  not  my  object,  at  present,  to  give  you  a  detailed 
description  of  the  military  movements  of  these  turbulent 
years.  It  would  require  several  lectures  to  do  justice  to 
the  achievements  of  the  noble  Maccabean  heroes.  You 
can  find  in  the  books  of  the  Maccabees  and  in  Josephus  a 
graphic  description  of  the  moves  and  counter-moves  of 
both  parties. 

Mathatias  had  five  sons,  who  all  died  one  after  the 
other,  in  the  service  of  the  cause  and  party  which  they 
had  espoused.  Notwithstanding  their  reported  heroism 
and  bravery,  the  independence  which  they  finally  gained 
was  not  so  much  the  fruit  of  the  sword  as  of  the  pen  ; 
not  so  much  the  outcome  of  successful  battles  as  of  polit- 
ical intrigue.  If  the  power  of  the  Syrian  rulers  had 
not  been  on  tlie  decline ;  if  there  had  not  been  rivalry 
and  murder  within  the  royal  families;  if  adventurers  had 
not  succeeded  in  rising  to  the  regency;  if,  finally,  Rome 
had  not  encouraged  the  contesting  parties,  though  never 
permitting  the  victor  to  enjo}^  the  fruits  of  his  victor}-, 
Judea  could  never  have  gained  the  independence  which 
it  held  for  a  short  time. 

The  history  of  that  turbulent  era,  as  we  have  received 
it,  is  rather  one-sided.  It  was  written  by  partisans,  and 
while  we  hear  of  the  heroic  exploits  of  the  one  party,  and 


48  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

the  justice  of  their  cause,  we  hear  nothing  regarding  the 
other  side.  The  successful  party  had  probably  destroyed 
all  pleas  of  their  opponents. 

As  I  now  wish  to  discuss  the  question,  what  was  the 
religious  condition  of  the  Jewish  nation  at  the  end  of 
that  period,  when  the  war  was  over,  we  may  glean 
some  insight  into  the  state  of  affairs  from  the  biography 
of  Simon,  the  last  of  the  Maccabees. 

Mathatias  was  an  old  man  when  he  raised  the  banner  of 
revolt.  He  had  five  valiant  sons — Jochanan,  Simon, 
Judah,  Eleazar,  and  Jonathan.  When  on  his  death-bed, 
he  advised  his  friends  and  compatriots  to  follow  the  lead 
of  Judah,  his  third  son,  as  a  commander  in  the  battle- 
field, but  to  be  guided  in  their  councils  by  the  advice  of 
Simon,  his  second  son.  After  a  short  but  glorious  career, 
Judah,  who  had  gained  for  himself  and  family  the  hon- 
ored name  Maccabi,  his  elder  brother,  Jochanan,  and 
his  brother  Eleazar  found  their  death  upon  the  battle- 
field. Simon  and  Jonathan,  the  youngest  of  the  breth- 
ren, remained.  For  reasons  of  which  we  have  no  account, 
Jonathan,  the  younger  brother,  took  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment into  his  hands.  For  about  nine  years  he  steered 
tlie  ship  of  state  through  the  breakers,  and  by  lucky  alli- 
ances he  succeeded  in  keeping  the  country  in  a  somewhat 
independent  position.  He  fell,  finally,  into  a  snare  laid 
by  Tryphon,  a  Greek  adventurer,  who  had  usurped  the 
Syrian  throne.  Upon  his  friendly  invitation,  Jonathan 
had  entered  the  city  of  Acco,  accompanied  by  two  thou- 
sand men.  He  was  treacherously  taken  captive,  and  his- 
body-guard  was  cut  down  in  cold  blood.  Through  an- 
other act  of  treachery,  Tryphon  succeeded  in  getting  hold 
of  the  children  of  Jonathan,  and  they  were  all  assassi- 
nated a  shorfe  time  later.    At  this  time  it  seemed  as  though 


SIMON,   THE   LAST   OF   THE  MACCABEES  49 

all  the  fruits  of  the  previous  struggles  would  be  lost,  that 
all  the  blood  which  had  been  spilled  for  the  cause  of  re- 
ligious and  political  independence  had  flowed  in  vain. 
The  Hellenistic  party,  ciushed  by  Jonathan,  raised  again 
its  head,  because  the  people's  party  had  been  left  without 
a  recognized  leader. 

At  this  critical  moment,  Simon,  the  modest  and  unam- 
bitious Simon,  though  advanced  in  years,  stepped  to  the 
fore,  to  assume  an  office  which  nobody  was  ready  to  ac- 
cept, and  nobody  envied.  The  address  by  which  he  en- 
couraged his  party,  and  which  we  might  call  in  our  days 
an  inaugural  speech,  has  been  preserved  in  two  records, 
and  no  doubt  seems,  therefore,  to  hover  around  its  au- 
thenticity. 

"Oh,  my  countrymen  I  '*  said  he,  "you  are  not  ignorant 
that  ni}^  father  and  my  brethren  have  ventured  to  hazard 
their  lives  willingly  for  the  recovery  of  their  liberty ; 
since  I  have,  therefore,  such  plenty  of  examples  before 
me,  and  we  and  our  family  have  determined  to  die  for  our 
laws  and  our  divine  worship,  there  shall  be  no  terrors  so 
great  as  to  banish  this  resolution  from  my  soul.  Do  you, 
therefore,  follow  me  whichsoever  way  I  shall  lead  you.  T 
offer  myself  as  your  captain,  for  I  am  not  better  than  my 
brethren,  that  I  shall  be  sparing  of  my  own  life.  I  mean 
to  undergo  death  for  your  laws,  and  for  that  worship  of 
God  which  is  peculiar  to  j^ou.  I  will,  therefore,  give 
such  proper  demonstrations  as  will  show  that  T  am  their 
brother,  and  I  am  so  bold  as  to  expect  that  I  shall  avenge 
their  blood,  and  deliver  you  from  the  injustice  they  in- 
tend against  you ;  for  I  see  that  these  nations  have  you 
in  contempt  as  being  without  a  governor,  and  that  they 
hence  are  encouraged  to  make  war  against  you." 

During  his  government,  which,  like  that  of  his  brother 


50  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

Jonathan,  had  lasted  only  nine  years,  he  lifted  his  country 
to  a  pinnacle  of  independence  which  it  had  never  held  be- 
fore. Carefully  keeping  in  his  hands  the  balance  of 
power,  he  compelled  the  Syrian  rulers,  step  by  step,  to 
acknowledge  him  as  the  independent  prince  of  an  inde- 
pendent people.  He  was  strengthened  by  an  alliance 
into  which  he  entered  with  the  Romans  ;  but  little  did  he 
dream  that,  though  advantageous  to  him  at  present,  this 
alliance  would  cause,  later  on,  the  ruin  of  the  Jewish  na- 
tion. Coins  which  he  had  struck  are  still  extant,  and  the 
years  of  the  new  commonwealth  are  counted  thereupon 
from  the  day  of  his  inauguration.  He  compelled  the  last 
remnant  of  the  Hellenists  to  vacate  the  impregnable  cit- 
adel of  Acron,  which  they  had  erected,  and  held,  until 
then,  in  the  very  heart  of  Jerusalem,  and  he  razed  it  to 
the  ground.  His  career,  however,  ended  as  sadly  as  had 
that  of  all  his  brethren  ;  a  member  of  his  own  family,  his 
son-in-law,  aspired  for  the  seat  of  honor  which  he  had 
gained  after  a  life  of  struggles,  and  he  caused  his  assassi- 
nation at  the  banquet  to  which  the  unsuspecting  Simon, 
had  come.  With  him  died  his  wife  and  his  children,  ex- 
cepting one  son,  who,  as  by  a  miracle,  escaped  a  similar 
fate,  and  who  followed  him  in  office.  Simon's  reign  had 
been  more  peaceful,  in  general,  than  that  of  his  brethren. 
The  last  sparks  of  party  strife  had  been  extinguished,  and 
the  Hellenistic  faction. had  been  anniiiilated.  It  almost 
seemed  as  if  the  long  hoped-for  independence  of  Judea 
had  been  a  reward  bestowed  by  God  upon  his  people  for 
their  faithful  adherence  to  his  laws. 

Still,  the  religious  condition  had  not  remained  un- 
changed, though  all  the  battles  of  the  previous  years  had 
been  fought  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  inherited  re- 
ligion  intact.      The  policy  of    isolation  inaugurated  by 


SIMON,    THE    LAST    OF   THE    ^rACCABEES  51 

Ezra  had  passed  through  a  severe  test,  and  came  out 
stronger  than  it  had  gone  in.  Its  p]-essure  had  been  felt, 
but  the  time  for  a  change  had  been  ill  chosen.  Asa  nat- 
ural consequence  of  the  non-success  of  the  Hellenists  the 
priestly  party  arose  to  the  highest  honors,  and  the  Bible, 
for  which  the  heart-blood  of  its  defenders  was  shed,  was 
now  commanding  greater  respect  and  veneration  than  ever 
before.  The  eye  of  the  world  had  been  directed  towards 
that  book ;  the  Jew  had  pointed  with  pride  to  the  wise 
legislation  of  Moses  ;  he  had  placed  his  wisdom  far  above 
that  of  Plato  and  the  rest  of  the  Grecian  philosophers, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  the  need  for  a  Greek  translation  of 
this  remarkable  book  had  been  felt.  The  demand  was 
supplied,  and  during  the  reign  of  Simon  a  Greek  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible  —  the  Septuaginta  —  was  published  in 
Alexandria.  From  that  moment  the  Bible  became  the 
book  of  books,  the  property  of  all  mankind. 

Every  letter  of  it  was  now  submitted  to  severe  scrutiny ; 
an  unending  controversy  between  Jews  and  Gentiles  en- 
sued, and  the  greater  familiarity  of  the  Jews  with  its 
divine  laws  produced  a  love  for  it  which  almost  bordered 
upon  idolatry.  Temple  and  sacrifices  were  somewhat 
forced  into  the  background  while  the  preservation  and  in- 
terpretation of  the  Bible,  of  the  sacred  law,  became  now 
the  main  duty  of  a  devout  Israelite.  No  matter  whether 
practicable  or  impracticable,  whether  convenient  or  incon- 
venient, the  laws  prescribed  in  the  sacred  book  were  to  be 
carried  out  to  the  very  letter.  It  became  the  duty  of  the 
pious  simply  to  obey,  God  would  then  take  care  of  the 
rest.  Durino;  that  age,  the  idea  was  born  that  God  had 
commissioned  Israel  for  the  special  task  of  guarding  his 
law.  The  faithful  Jew  should  never  falter  in  the  fulfil- 
ment of  this  trust,  nor  should  he  ever  count  or  fear  the 


52  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

number  of  his  adversaries.  God,  the  never  slumbering 
guardian  of  Israel,  would  strengthen  him,  fight  his  battles, 
and  preserve  him. 

The  almost  insane  defiance  which  the  Jewish  people 
afterwards  offered  to  all-powerful  Rome,  the  passive  hero- 
ism with  which  thej^  met  in  later  years  the  attacks  and  by 
which  they  baffled  the  pernicious  plans  of  their  enemies, 
were  the  outcome  of  that  confidence  in  the  timely  aid  of 
God  which  had  received  such  glorious  illustration  and 
verification  during  the  Maccabean  era.  Indeed,  Judaism 
had  again  changed  its  aspect.  It  had  been  dragged  out  of 
its  peaceful  solitude  and  had  been  exposed  to  the  gaze  of 
an  astonished  world.  It  had  fought  its  first  battles  with 
Paganism  ;  it  had  left  the  battle-field  as  a  victor  ;  it  had 
survived  as  the  fittest.  His  isolation,  like  the  walls  of  a 
prison,  had  deprived  the  Israelite  of  his  liberty,  but  in  ex- 
change had  protected  him  against  the  attacks  of  his  ad- 
versaries. The  first  attempt  to  break  down  these  walls 
had  been  an  utter  failure,  and  the  second  attempt,  which 
was  to  follow  soon,  should  end  in  that  compromise  between 
Hellenistic  and  Jewish  ideas  which  has  reached  us  under 
the  name  of  Christianity. 


V. 

RABBI   JOCHANAN   BEN   SACCAI   AND  HIS   TIME 

It  was  in  the  year  sixty-eight  of  the  coininon  era  when, 
about  midnight,  a  solemn  procession  was  wending  its  way 
through  the  narrow  streets  of  Jerusalem.  Two  torch- 
bearers  in  front,  two  in  the  rear,  four  strong  men  carrying 
a  coffin,  two  men,  apparently  the  chief  mourners,  walking 
at  each  side,  made  up  the  mournful  parade.  All  orders 
were  given  in  a  whisper  by  one  of  the  mourners.  Why  ? 
That  the  peaceful  rest  of  the  departed  might  not  be  dis- 
turbed ?  Such  caution  seemed  entirely  unnecessary,  for 
the  corpse  must  have  been  already  in  an  advanced  state  of 
putrefaction,  judging  from  the  bad  odor  which  came  from 
the  coffin,  and  made  the  atmosphere  in  its  vicinity  unfit 
for  respiration.  To  say  that  our  procession  was  walking 
through  the  stillness  of  the  night  would  be  far  from 
trutli,  for  the  whole  city  seemed  to  be  awake  and  alive. 
Riots  had  taken  place  during  the  previous  days  ;  fierce 
battles  had  been  fought  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  be- 
tween the  zealots  and  the  moderates  ;  the  latter  had  been 
defeated,  and  the  Synhedrion  had  been  dissolved  ;  Eleazar 
Ben  Simon,  the  leader  of  the  zealots,  held  the  city  in  iron 
bonds  with  the  help  of  twenty  thousand  Idumeans,  to 
whom  he  had  treacherously  opened  the  gates  of  the  city  ; 
armed  bands  were  patrolling  the  streets,  and  woe  to  him 
who,  by  sign,  word,  or  deed,  should  betray  that  he  was  in 
sympathy  with  the  defeated  faction.     Whenever  such  u 

53 


54  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

band  was  met,  the  leader  of  our  procession  would  whisper 
the  pass-word,  and  torch  and  pall-bearers  were  permitted 
to  proceed.  At  last,  the  gates  of  the  city  were  reached, 
and  the  panting  pall-bearers  placed  the  heav}'  coffin  upon 
the  ground  to  rest  for  a  short  moment.  The  leader  gave 
the  pass-word,  and  asked  politely  that  the  doors  might  be 
opened  for  him  and  his  party ;  but  the  officer  in  charge 
hesitated  to  comply  with  the  request.  Strict  orders  had 
been  received  not  to  allow  anybody  to  pass,  and  when  the 
name  of  the  deceased  was  mentioned,  and  it  was  made 
known  that  he  had  been  a  member  of  the  Synhedrion,  the 
officer  ordered  them  to  open  the  coffin  that  he  might  iden- 
tify the  corpse.  The  mourners  begged  him  not  to  dis- 
honor the  bodily  remains  of  their  friend,  but  the  dutiful 
officer  insisted  that  his  orders  should  be  obeyed.  At  this 
critical  moment,  another  officer  approached,  and  a  sigh  of 
relief  escaped  the  breast  of  the  chief  mourner.  "Ben 
Batiach,"  he  addressed  him,  "  you  are  just  in  time ;  your 
friend  here  refuses  us  passage,  though  we  have  given  him 
the  pass-word,  and  he  is  even  about  to  dishonor  the  re- 
mains of  our  friend  by  opening  the  coffin."  "  I  have 
strict  orders,"  replied  the  officer,  "  not  to  open  the  gate  to 
anybody."  "  But  a  funeral  is  an  exception,"  argued  Ben 
Batiach,  "and  I  vouch  for  this  man.  I  have  known  the 
departed,  I  was  present  when  he  died,  and  if  you  doubt 
my  word,  the  Avord  of  a  comrade,  trust  to  your  own  organ 
of  smell ;  the  body  is  rapidly  disintegrating,  and  it  is  high 
time  that  it  is  put  under  ground."  The  last  argument 
seemed  to  convince  the  officer.  He  gave  the  necessary 
orders,  the  bolted  doors  swung  open^  the  pall-bearers  took 
up  the  coffin,  and  the  party  disappeared  behind  the  gates, 
which  were  as  quickly  closed  as  they  had  been  opened. 
The  officer,  however,  ascended  to  the  parapets  of  the 


RABBI   JOCHANAN    BEN    SACCAl    AND    HIS    TIME        00 

wall,  to  see  which  way  the  procession  was  taking,  but, 
alas  !  nothing  was  to  be  seen  of  torchers,  pall-bearers,  and 
coffin.  "  Strange,  very  strange  !  "  muttered  the  officer, 
descending  again.  What  would  have  been  his  astonish- 
ment could  he  have  seen  what  happened  after  the  party 
had  passed  the  gate  !  They  had  halted  in  a  ravine,  and 
had  extinguished  the  torches  ;  the  coffin  had  been  "liastily 
opened,  a  piece  of  decaying  meat  had  been  flung  aside, 
and  a  man,  strong  and  powerful,  though  the  weight  of 
eighty  years  or  more  might  have  been  resting  on  his 
shoulders,  had  been  helped  out  of  his  close  confinement. 
"  Praise  be  to  God,"  exclaimed  he,  stretching  and  rubbing 
his  benumbed  limbs,  "  the  greatest  danger  is  past."  A 
shrill  whistle  was  now  given  and  answered  from  the  dis- 
tance ;  a  man,  leading  some  strong  mules,  approached  ; 
they  mounted  the  animals  at  once,  and,  in  a  brisk  trot,  the}' 
took  the  road  leading  to  Csesarea,  the  headquarters  of 
Vespasian,  the  general-in-chief  of  the  Roman  army. 

The  man  who  had  come  so  miraculously  into  life  again 
was  Rabbi  Jochanan  Ben  Saccai ;  the  pretending  mourners 
were  Rabbi  Eliezer  Ben  Hyrcanos  and  Rabbi  Joshua  Ben 
Chananja,  his  devoted  disciples. 

To  give  a  description  of  the  events  which  have  taken 
place  during  the  last  few  years  of  the  second  Jewish  com- 
monwealth would  take,  on  the  one  hand,  more  time  than 
we  can  spare ;  and  on  the  other,  I  should  fail  for  want 
of  reliable  material.  Josephus  and  Justin  of  Tiberias 
are  the  only  sources  at  our  disposal.  They  were  eye- 
witnesses ;  but  they  were  actors  in  the  drama  at  the 
same  time,  and  their  description  has  therefore  been  tinted 
by  party  feelings  and  prejudices.  The  Talmud  offers  only 
here  and  there  a  bit  of  information,  and  merely  by  com- 
paring the  scant  sources  wilh  one  another,  and  by  always 


56  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

guarding  one's  self  against   exaggerations,  one   may  get 
some  faint  idea  of  what  happened  at  that  period  in  Judea. 

After  the  final  dissolution  of  the  Syrian  federation,  the 
Romans  became  the  heirs  of  the  former  .Macedonian  em- 
pire. If  they  spoke  before  as  friends,  they  began  now  to 
act  as  haughty  masters.  Pretending  to  act  as  an  arbitra- 
tor between  two  brothers,  Ponipey  had  entered  Jerusalem 
and  had  left  a  garrison  there.  From  this  moment  Judea 
became  in  fact  a  Roman  province.  The  Roman  yoke  was 
not  as  pleasant  as  had  been  the  Persian.  Unless  a  coun- 
try submitted  obediently  to  the  laws  and  dictation  of  the 
Roman  Senate,  as  had  done  the  states  of  Italy,  Spain, 
Gaul,  and  Asia  Minor,  it  was  considered  a  hostile  territory 
and  given  over  to  the  malicious  depredations  of  rapacious 
pro-consuls. 

Isolation  from  the  surrounding  world  had  now  become 
an  utter  impossibility,  and  the  Jews  had  constantly  to 
clamor  for  privileges  if  they  wished  to  protract  a  national 
existence  and  to  remain  at  the  same  time  loyal  to  the  laws 
which  they  considered  divine.  These  privileges  were 
sparingly  granted,  and  between  the  exacting  mill-stones 
of  Jewish  and  Roman  law,  of  what  was  due  to  God  and 
of  what  was  due  to  Csesar,  were  the  inhabitants  of  Judea 
ground  to  powder.  When,  finally,  the  pressure  became 
unbearable,  the  people  arose  for  the  final  struggle,  which 
ended  with  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  the  conflagra- 
tion of  the  temple,  and  the  dissolution  of  the  national 
existence  of  Israel.  Whenever  the  life  of  a  nation  is 
ebbing  away,  it  can  be  observed  that  a,  state  of  mortifica- 
tion sets  in  and  disintegrates  its  social  order.  Parties 
become  numerous,  and,  if  we  subtract  their  many  diver- 
gences, we  find  that  they  always  centre  around  two 
opposite  lieadiinarters,  exactly  the  same  ones  which  have 


RABBI   JOCHANAN    BEN    SACCAI   AND    HIS    TIME        57 

always  opposed  each  other  —  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
possessing  chiss  and  the  proletarian.  A  great  deal  of  in- 
formation has  reached  us  in  regard  to  some  sects,  of  both 
a  religious  and  political  character,  which  are  said  to  have 
divided  the  people  about  that  time.  The  names  of  Phar- 
isees, Sadducees,  and  Essenes  have  become  household 
words  among  us.  Still,  in  the  last  hours  of  the  nation 
they  have  vanished  from  sight,  and  their  places  were  filled 
by  parties  entirely  different  from  them.  One  party  was 
formed  by  the  land-owners  and  moneyed  men,  by  all  those 
who  had  something  to  lose,  either  their  inherited  wealtli 
or  the  fruits  of  their  labor.  They  were  of  a  peaceful 
disposition,  they  had  knowledge  and  foresight,  and  under- 
stood easily  that  only  by  a  close  alliance  with  Rome,  by 
submitting  to  the  laws  of  the  state,  could  the  countr}^  be 
saved.  They  were  encouraged  in  their  peaceful  disposi- 
tion by  the  greater  portion  of  the  learned  profession,  a 
class  of  people  which  had  sprung  up  in  imitation  of  the 
philosophical  schools  of  Greece  and  Rome.  For  want  of 
books,  the  man  who  by  talent,  instruction,  or  travel  had 
gained  some  experience  which  was  worth  transmitting 
was  surrounded  with  a  circle  of  young  men  to  whom  he 
could  teach  his  thoughts  and  ideas.  He  would  talk  to 
them  Avhenever  he  found  a  cliance,  when  taking  a  walk, 
when  sitting  down  to  a  meal,  in  the  halls  of  the  temple. 
or  in  the  market-place ;  they,  in  their  turn,  would  elicit 
from  him  by  questions  all  that  seemed  desirable  for  them 
to  know. 

We  must  never  compare  the  philosopher  and  philosoph- 
ical schools  of  that  time  to  our  professors  and  colleges. 
Any  one,  no  matter  of  what  station  in  life,  who  knew 
something  worth  teaching,  would  find  eager  listeners  and 
devoted    disciples.     This   syslem    of   piiilosophiziiig    and 


58  Dl.SSOLVING    VIEWS 

teaching  had  been  imported  from  Greece  to  Judea,  but, 
while  in  Athens  or  Corinth  each  teaclier  had  formed  a 
theor}^  of  his  own,  Jewish  philosophers  had  been  supplied 
with  a  starting-point  for  their  researches.  They  were  in 
possession  of  a  law  delivered  to  them,  as  they  believed,  by 
God  himself,  and  of  which  every  letter  must,  therefore, 
have  a  meaning.  As  this  law  had  often  come  in  conflict 
with  common  usage,  and  as  none  of  its  prescriptions  could 
be  abolished  or  changed,  it  was  claimed  that  another  law 
had  been  delivered  orally  by  God  to  Moses,  that  this 
other  law  (the  Mishna)  had  likewise  been  preserved, 
and  that  both  the  written  and  the  oral  law  should 
supplement  each  other.  The  interpretation  of  the  oral 
law  became  a  valuable  material  for  philosophical  discus- 
sions, and  disciples  crowded  around  teachers  who  would 
transmit  to  them  their  version  and  interpretation  of  these 
liiws.  These  teachers  were  not  paid  instructors  ;  they 
lived,  in  most  cases,  by  some  trade,  and  met  their  disci^Dles 
at  their  leisure  hours,  at  the  time  of  public  worship  in  the 
large  halls  surrounding  the  temple  courts.  On  account 
of  their  knowledge  and  of  the  respect  which  they  com- 
manded, the}^  were  frequently  chosen  members  of  the 
Synhedrion,  the  highest  Jewish  court  of  appeals,  a  body 
which  at  that  time,  like  a  parliament  in  our  days,  was  a 
governing  factor,  sometimes  the  sole  power  in  the  admin- 
istrative machiner3^  These  men,  too,  were  for  a  peaceful 
solution  of  the  burning  political  questions.  They  were 
ready  to  give  up  their  existence  as  a  nation,  provided 
■  they  were  granted  the  privilege  of  living  according  to  the 
ethical  commands  of  their  law.  They,  or  at  least  some  of 
them,  were  aware  that  the  time  had  come  for  a  separation 
•of  church  and  state,  and  that  it  was  the  inission  of  Israel 
rather  to  spread  their   religion   than  to   preserve  the  ap- 


RABBI   JOCHANAM    BEN    SACCAl    AND    HIS    TIME       59 

pearance  of  a  national  government   which  circumstances 
had  made  impossible. 

The  other  party  was  composed  of  the  most  turbulent 
members  of  society,  of  men  who  had  nothing  to  lose  and 
all  to  gain,  and  who  had  no  understanding  whatever  of 
tlie  political  situation.  In  their  ignorance,  they  expected 
that  Providence  would  take  care  of  them  as  it  did  of  the 
lilies  of  the  field.  TJie  most  foolish  ideas  were  current 
among  them,  such  as  that  it  would  be  best  for  the  pious 
to  sell  out  his  possessions  and  give  the  proceeds  to  the 
poor;  they  never  thought  that  if  one  pious  person  should 
wish  to  sell  his  property  another  wicked  person  must 
be  in  readiness,  willing  to  buy  and  to  pay  the  money 
which  was  to  be  divided  among  the  poor.  They  clamored 
against  the  rich  and  described  them  as  vicious  and 
wicked,  exactly  as  we  find  tlie  Anarchists  denounce  the 
holders  of  property  to-day.  Not  a  few  of  them  expected 
a  change  fur  the  better  from  the  anarchical  conditions 
which  are  the  companions  of  war  ;  others  hoped  to  get 
rid  of  the  Roman  yoke,  having  no  knowledge  whatsoever 
of  the  power  Avhich  that  empire  could  wield.  The  success 
of  the  Maccabees  arainst  the  laro-er  forces  of  the  Svrians 
encouraged  them  to  think  that  they  could  defeat  the 
Romans  as  their  grandparents  liad  defeated  the  S3n'ians. 
Expectations  in  the  advent  of  a  Messiah,  of  a  descendant 
of  David  who,  furnislied  by  God  with  supernatural 
powers,  would  restore  to  Judea  its  former  autonomy  and 
isolation,  were  afloat  among  the  lower  classes,  and  they 
beheld  in  every  adventurer  the  divine  and  long  expected 
messenger.  The  fire  of  their  enthusiasm  was  fanned  into 
the  wildest  flames  by  the  priests,  who  seemed  to  liave  an- 
ticipated the  end  of  their  rule  and  that  the  time  was 
drawing    \\y^\    when    tiiey    shoukl    be    dis[)ensed    with. 


60  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

Staking  their  all  on  one  chance,  they  preached  war  and 
exerted  their  influence  to  persuade  the  credulous  multi- 
tude to  trust  to  the  chances  which  a  sharp  sword  and  a 
brave  arm  could  offer.  The  spark  finally  fell  into  the 
powder  magazine  ;  Gessius  Florus,  the  Roman  pro-consul, 
was  driven  from  Jerusalem,  and  the  people,  misled  by  their 
leaders,  had  risen  into  revolt.  Vespasian  was  sent  to 
quell  the  disturbance  ;  clever  general  as  he  was,  he  first 
subdued  the  country,  took  the  fortresses  by  storm,  and 
garrisoned  its  larger  cities,  drawing  his  circles  closer  and 
closer  around  Jerusalem.  After  he  had  subdued  the 
country,  political  combinations  made  him  wait  for  fully 
two  years  before  he  ordered  his  son  Titus  to  lay  siege  to 
the  capital.  During  these  two  j'ears,  Jerusalem  must  have 
offered  a  spectacle  similar  to  that  which  had  been  enacted 
in  Paris  in  1871  when  the  German  army  was  surrounding 
it.  Party  strife  and  murder  made  life  unsafe.  A  suc- 
cessful leader  would  arise  for  a  few  days,  to  be  deposed  by 
the  next  successful  adventurer.  The  anarchists  gained 
ascendency ;  the  moderates  were  defeated  by  them,  and 
the  Synhedrion,  the  local  government  and  last  authority, 
was  adjourned  sine  die.  Its  members  were  threatened 
with  death  if  they  should  dare  to  assemble,  and  it  was  at 
this  time  when  Jochanau  Ben  Saccai,  one  of  the  most  in- 
fluential members  of  the  Synhedrion,  fearing  that  his  life 
would  not  be  safe  in  the  capital  and  hoping  that  he  could 
be  of  greater  service  to  his  party  and  people  outside  of 
the  city,  made  his  escape  in  a  coffin  from  Jerusalem.  He 
and  his  followers  reached  safely  the  camp  of  the  Romans, 
and,  gaining  the  good-will  of  Vespasian,  he  was  permitted 
to  withdraw  to  Jamnia,  a  small  town  near  the  sea-coast, 
in  the  rear  of  the  Roman  army,  and  to  open  what  was  then 
called  a  philosophical   school.     This  school  was  nothing 


RABBI    JOCHANAN    BEN   SACCAT   AND    HIS   TIME       61 

but  a  collection  of  the  fragments  of  the  broken-up  Syn- 
hedrion,  with  power  to  decide  in  all  such  (questions  of 
the  local  law  as  were  not  in  contradiction  to  the  Roman 
law.  What  the  true  connections  may  liave  been  between 
the  Synhedrion  of  Jamnia  and  the  Roman  government, 
or  why  privileges  were  granted  to  Jochanan  and  his  party 
at  a  time  wlien  Jerusalem  offered  her  last  and  most  vigor- 
ous resistance  to  the  foe,  has  never  been  discovered, 
though  the  fact  remains  that  for  a  number  of  years  the 
school  of  Jamnia  furnished  the  accredited  representatives 
of  the  Jewish  people  at  the  court  of  Rome.  < 

Jerusalem  was  finally  taken  by  storm,  the  temple  de- 
stroyed, the  unfortunate  inliabitants  sold  as  slaves,  and 
the  whole  country  placed  under  Roman  government,  to 
be  Romanized  like  any  other  province.  The  first  shock 
was  over;  and  the  body  of  the  people,  though  torn  and 
bleeding,  was  craving  reconstruction.  A  whole  people, 
numbering  several  millions  of  persons,  can  neither  be 
killed  nor  imprisoned  nor  sold  as  slaves.  Even  if  a  great 
number  perish  in  an  unsuccessful  struggle,  if  the  prime 
of  its  youth  and  its  best  citizens  are  led  into  captivity, 
the  masses  remain  at  home  and  demand  reconstruction. 
All  that  is  needed  at  such  a  national  calamity  is  that  a 
man  be  found  worthy  and  deserving  the  confidence  of  the 
people,  a  man  able  to  make  changes  and  to  cover  all  in- 
novations by  his  authority.  Such  a  man  must  be  of  a 
peaceful  disposition  and  ready  to  yield  to  any  compromise 
that  offers  itself  to  him.  Ben  Saccai  proved  to  be  such 
a  man.  After  he  had  becomingly  mourned  over  the  fall 
of  the  city  and  the  destruction  of  the  sanctuary,  he  began 
to  exert  his  influence.  To  him,  the  friend  of  the  Roman 
emperor  and  at  the  same  time  the  true  friend  of  the  peo- 
ple, all  eyes  were  now  naturally  directed.     He  could  help, 


R2  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

he  should  help,  he  was  willing  to  Iielj).  He  began  to  or- 
ganize disorganized  society,  and  to  bring  order  into  the 
chaos.  Whenever  the  Roman  law  clashed  too  rigorousl}' 
against  a  local  custom,  he  tried  to  weaken  the  effect 
and  to  find  some  modus  vivendi.  The  severest  task, 
however,  was  for  him  to  find  a  substitute  for  the  temple 
and  the  temple  service.  If  God  was  not  worshipped  at 
his  chosen  place,  if  he  did  not  receive  homage  in  the  wav 
the  law  prescribed,  would  not  his  wrath  be  kindled 
afresh,  would  he  not  bring  new  calamities  upon  the  peo- 
ple ?  How  could  a  man  receive  forgiveness  for  his  sins  ? 
How  could  purification  be  obtained  ?  The  temple,  witli 
its  services  and  ceremonies,  had  reached  into  every  house- 
liold,  and  every  action  in  common  life  had  to  be  brought 
in  consonance  with  the  new  state  of  things.  Rabbi 
Jochanan  Ben  Saccai  radically  changed  the  state  of  affairs. 
He  was  prudent  enough  to  understand  that  we  must  take 
things  as  they  are  and  not  as  they  ought  to  be,  and  that 
we  must  make  the  best  of  present  conditions,  leaving 
past  and  future  to  take  care  of  themselves.  The  temple 
was  destroyed,  the  altar  flame  extinguished.  Not  before 
many  years,  if  ever,  could  the  former  temple  service  be 
restored.  But  what  of  it?  He,  and  with  him  a  great  many 
other  men,  had  learned  to  look  at  a  temple  as  an  almost 
unnecessary  institution ;  men  of  his  calibre  had  long 
ceased  to  regard  the  temple  as  an  object  for  blind  adora- 
tion. Their  God  had  long  before  outgrown  the  sanctuary. 
He  was  to  be  found  everywhere,  and  could  be  worshipped 
in  a  less  material  and  more  spiritual  manner.  Jochanan. 
Ben  Saccai  and  his  school  had  long  before  symbolized  the 
ceremonies  and  sacred  rites  performed  in  the  temple  ; 
they  had  long  before  been  accustomed  to  look  rather  at 
the  spiritual  meaning  of  an  act  than  upon  the  act  itself. 


RABBT    JOCHANAN   EEN   SACCAT    AXD    HIS   TIME        63 

He  was,  therefore,  the  first  one  to  ncknowlerlge  the  inevi- 
table and  to  yield  tu  ciiciunstances.  He  was  ready  to 
compromise  ;  had  not  the  prophets  long  before  expressed 
the  idea  that  God  does  not  care  for  the  blood  of  bullocks, 
but  that  noble  conduct  is  agreeable  to  him?  If  such 
were  the  case,  wl\y  continue  sacrifices  ?  Was  not  prayer 
an  excellent  substitute  for  it,  and  were  not  the  syna- 
gogues, the  public  meeting-houses,  proper  places  for 
divine  worship?  Would  not  God,  who  was  everywhere, 
bless  with  his  presence  every  place  where  his  name  was 
adored  in  truth  and  sincerity  ?  Covered  by  bis  authority, 
the  new  idea  found  admission  and  a  good  reception 
among  the  people.  Many  were  in  hope  that  the  Messiah 
would  soon  come  and  would  restore  the  temple,  and, 
therefore,  they  were  ready  to  substitute  prayers  for 
sacrifices  during  the  interim ;  others  adopted  the  new 
method  of  worship,  the  more  cheerfully  the  more  "they 
were  convinced  that  the  whole  temple  service  had  been  a 
relic  of  a  barbarous  past,  of  a  time  less  advanced  than 
theirs, — and  tlius  the  church  was  separated  from  the  state. 
Judaism  ceased  to  be  a  national  institution,  it  became  a 
theolog3^  It  was  separated  from  the  ground  upon  which 
it  had  flourished  so  long,  and  fitted  to  live  upon  whatever 
soil  it  should  be  planted.  God  ceased  to  be  a  national 
God,  a  God  domiciled  in  a  certain  land  and  bound  to  a 
certain  city  and  temple  ;  he  became  the  God  of  the  whole 
earth,  and  his  presence  was  to  be  felt  wherever  a  devout 
worshipper  would  turn  to  him. 

Under  the  pretext  of  waiting  until  former  conditions 
might  be  reestablished.  Rabbi  Jochanan  Ben  Saccai  declared 
many  of  such  laws  temporarily  void  which  would  offend 
against  Roman  legislation,  and  thus  he  removed  many  an 
obstacle  which  would  have  prevented  better  understand- 


64  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

ing  between  Jew  and  Gentile.  He  is  said  to  liave  reached 
the  age  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  years,  but  his  activity 
as  leader  of  the  people  and  as  president  of  the  Synhedrion 
could  not  have  lasted  over  ten  years.  Under  the  reign  of 
Domitian,  his  influence  was  not  felt  at  all  ;  still,  during 
his  administration  he  laid  the  foundation  of  that  religious 
development  which  afterwards  became  the  main-stay  of 
Judaism,  and  he  has  taught  us  the  great  lesson  that 
Judaism  can  exist  even  if  it  changes  its  most  essential 
features  in  conformity  with  the  demands  of  the  day. 
Under-  him  Judaism  assumed  again  an  entirely  new 
aspect.  All  the  parties  and  sects  of  a  former  generation 
vanished  ;  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  ceased  to  quarrel  with 
each  other;  the  temple  was  supplanted  by  the  synagogue, 
sacrifices  by  the  prayer,  the  priest  by  any  one  who  was 
able  to  read,  teach,  and  interpret  both  the  written  and 
the  oral  law.  The  Synhedrion  lost  its  juridical  qualifica- 
tion, and  became  a  consistory  to  advise  people  in  regard 
to  their  religious  duties.  Judaism  became  a  science,  a 
philosophy,  and  ceased  to  be  a  political  institution. 
Whether  Ben  Saccai  ever  intended  to  break  down  en- 
tirely the  walls  of  isolation  which  for  so  long  a  time  pre- 
vented the  Israelites  from  a  glorious  alliance  with  the 
Gentile  world,  whether  he  still  believed  in  the  dogma 
tiiat  Israel  was  God's  chosen  people,  we  know  nothing 
whatsoever.  Most  of  his  sa3dngs  that  have  come  to  us 
show  that  he  must  have  valued  more  highly  the  ethical 
element  in  religion  than  its  ceremonial  form.  He  was  a 
great  reformer  at  his  time.  He  totally  and  radically 
changed  the  whole  system  of  divine  worship,  and  made 
it  correspond  with  the  demands  of  his  time ;  but  here  his 
activity  finds  its  limit.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  hopes 
in  the  return  of  former  times  were  still  so  strongly  settled 


KABBI  JOCHANAN   BEN   SACCAI   AND    HIS   TIME       65 

in  the  hearts  of  the  people  that  Ben  Saccai  could  not 
have  established  his  innovations  otherwise  than  as  merely 
temporary  institutions,  to  be  put  aside  as  soon  as  the 
01am  Habo,  the  restoration  of  the  glorious  reign  of  the 
Davidian  house,  should  come  to  pass. 

By  the  way,  Ben  Saccai  must  have  been  a  contemporary 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  as  such  he  ought  to  have  heard 
of  him,  if  the  latter  had  been  indeed  a  man  of  some  re- 
nown ;  he  ought  to  have  heard  of  his  disciples  and  of  the 
first  Christian  societies  which  are  said  to  have  sprung  into 
prominence  about  this  time,  but  not  a  word  do  we  hear 
from  him  in  regard  to  the  new  religion.  He  finds  no 
cause  to  argue  against  a  new  sect,  or  to  pass  even  con- 
demnatory laws  against  their  principles.  His  silence 
most  eloquently  proves  that  at  his  time  the  new  sect 
was  little  known,. if  known  at  all,  and  that  it  did  not  as 
yet  materially  differ  from  Judaism. 

Rabbi  Jochanan  Ben  Saccai  died  in  the  arms  of  his 
disciples  ;  but  to  part  with  life  seemed  to  have  been  hard 
to  him,  in  spite  of  his  old  age.  When  his  friends  asked 
him  for  the  cause  of  his  fear,  he  answered,  "  I  do  not  fear 
death  ;  but  I  fear  to  appear  before  the  seat  of  judgment, 
before  the  Eternal  Judge,  whose  justice  cannot  be  bribed." 
Blessing  his  disciples,  he  wished  that  their  actions  should 
be  influenced  as  much  by  fear  of  God  as  they  generally 
were  by  fear  of  man.  He  left  a  number  of  disciples,  who 
for  some  time  led  the  people  in  the  new  direction  whicli 
he  had  marked  out.  Through  them  he  became  one  of  the 
fathers  of  the  Talmud,  a  work  of  much  renown  and  im- 
portance. 


VI. 

THE  TALMUD 

"  What  the  Pyramids  are  in  architecture  is  the  Talmud 
in  the  literature  of  the  world ;  what  these  colossal  testi- 
monials of  antique  greatness  are  to  Egypt  are  the  volumes 
of  which  the  Talmud  is  composed  to  Jud'aism."  Grand 
as  this  metaphor  may  sound  at  first  hearing  or  reading,  it 
cannot  bear  repetition.  The  pyramids  and  the  Talmud 
are  not  analogous ;  they  convey  no  picture  of  each  other, 
and  the  metaphor,  therefore,  loses  its  significance.  The 
only  resemblance  which  they  have  with  each  other  is  that 
they  both  are  unique,  that  neither  in  architecture  nor  in 
literature  can  anything  be  found  to  match  them.  Still, 
you  could  give  a  description  of  a  pyramid  and  even  a 
child  would  understand  you ;  you  could  raise  a  pyramid 
en  miniature  out  of  building-blocks,  and  the  most  slow  of 
conception  could  form  a  picture  of  the  architectural  fancy 
of  ancient  Egypt.  But  you  cannot  do  the  same  with  the 
Talmud,  and  the  man  is  yet  to  be  born  who  could  explain 
what  the  Talmud  is  to  one  who  had  never  studied  it. 
Every  description  is  a  comparison  ;  in  describing  a  thing, 
we  call  before  the  mind  of  the  reader  or  hearer  an  ob- 
ject of  which  he  has  had  some  knowledge,  and  add  to 
it  or  take  away  from  it  such  qualities  which  possessing, 
or  not  possessing,  would  make  it  equal  to  the  thing  of 
which  our  description  shall  produce  a  conception.  For 
every  description   we  need,  therefore,   an  object   which, 

66 


THE   TALMUD  67 

though  not  exactly  like  the  thing  to  be  described,  con- 
tains at  least  some  semblance  of  it.  For  a  description  of 
the  Talmud  we  lack  the  analogous  object.  In  the  litera- 
ture of  the  world,  nothing  can  be  found  to  which  the 
Talmud  could  possibly  be  compared.  It  is  ''a  literary- 
wilderness,  a  stupendous  labja-inth  of  thought,  fact,  and 
fancy."  ^  Unlike  other  books,  it  is  not  the  product  of  one 
mind,  or  the  result  of  the  tiiought  of  a  certain  special 
generation  ;  hundreds,  nay  thousands,  of  men  have  con- 
tributed to  it,  and  its  growth  extends  at  least  over  a 
period  of  six  or  seven  hundred,  if  not  over  a  thousand 
years,  as  many  think  it  did.  Its  language  is  a  mixture  of 
Hebrew,  Aramaic,  Chaldee,  and  Syriac,  still  more  con- 
fused by  a  liberal  admixture  of  corrupt  Greek  and  Latin 
words.  If  a  scholar  courageously  dives  into  tliis  polyglot 
sea,  and  brings  up  from  its  bottom  a  bucketful  of  sediment, 
he  will  be  disappointed  many  times  when  his  vessel  con- 
tains nothing  but  mud,  or  useless  trash,  but  once  in  a  while 
he  will  bring  to  light  the  most  costly  pearls  of  tiiought  to 
reward  him  for  his  labors.  Both  the  friends  and  the  ene- 
mies of  this  peculiar  literarj^  production  have  had,  there- 
fore, ample  material  to  defend  their  several  positions. 
The  former  would  show  with  a  sneer  the  mud  which  they 
had  found ;  the  latt-er  would  exhibit  proudly  the  pearls 
which  they  had  fished.  The  thought  might  suggest  itself 
to  many, — could  not  the  Talmud  be  sifted,  the  gems  be 
secured  and  the  worthless  sediment  be  left  to  itself? 
You  might  as  well  try  to  dredge  and  sift  the  bottom  of 
the  ocean.  And  where  shall  the  judge  be  found  to  dis- 
criminate between  what  is  valuable  and  what  is  worthless? 
Supposing  a  man  is  breaking  ground  somewhere,  and 
his  spade  lifts  up  a  tarnished  piece  of  copper,  a  coin  hardly 
1  Emanuel  Deutsch,  Literary  Remains. 


68  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

worth  a  cent :  absolutely  worthless  to  him,  he  would 
throw  it  aside,  while  a  numismatist  might  give  or  ask  a 
high  price  for  it.  Worthless  to  the  one,  it  would  become 
valuable  to  the  other,  because  of  the  collection  of  other 
coins  among  which  it  would  find  a  place.  Thus  sentences 
utterly  absurd  to  one  Talmudical  scholar  may  gain  a  high 
importance  with  another,  on  account  of  the  peculiar  study 
in  which  he  might  be  engaged,  and  in  which  the  most 
seemingly  insignificant  word  might  be  needed  as  an  in- 
dispensable link.  In  former  times  seven  wonders  of  the 
world  were  counted,  which  was  to  say  that  the  seven 
enumerated  objects  were  unique  and  could  not  be  repro- 
duced. What  truth  there  was  in  such  a  statement  I  do 
not  care  to  discuss  just  now  ;  but  if  uniqueness  and  ina- 
bility to  reproduce  a  thing  is  the  criterion  by  which  an 
object  may  be  assigned  a  place  among  the  wonders  of  the 
world,  the  Talmud  would  surely  rise  above  all  competi- 
tors. If  ever  there  has  been  a  wondi-ous  thing  in  the 
world,  it  is  the  Talmud.  Ever  since  its  completion,  the 
world  has  looked  with  staring  eyes  upon  it,  and  even 
to-da}',  whenever  the  word  is  mentioned,  people  will 
eagerly  listen  with  the  expectation  of  obtaining  some 
information  in  regard  to  this  wondrous  book.  The  great- 
est scholars  have  in  vain  attempted  to  give  some  adequate 
description  of  the  Talmud.  Men  like  Dr.  Emanuel 
Deutsch  or  Professor  Graetz,  who  have  not  only  had  the 
opportunity  of  studying  the  Talmud  carefully,  but  who 
have  combined  with  the  knowledge  of  Talmudical  lore 
the  knowledge  of  philology,  philosophy,  and  of  all  the 
branches  of  modern  science,  have  emphatically  declared 
their  inability  to  convey  their  conception  of  the  book  to 
others.  You  can,  therefore,  not  expect  of  me  to  under- 
take successfully  what  such  eminent  scholars   have  de- 


THE    TALMUD  69 

clared  to  be  impossible.  I  shall,  however,  try  another  met- 
aphor, although  I  know  beforehaml  that  it  will  not  cover 
the  ground,  in  order  to  give  you  a  very  faint  idea  of  what 
the  Talnuid  is.  If  you  could  collect,  of  all  the  newspapers 
published  in  four  or  five  countries  during  the  last  four 
hundred  years,  at  least  one  copy  for  every  year  and  paper  ; 
if  you  could  take  this  material,  —  leaders,  essays,  news, 
reviews,  —  string  them  together  without  title  or  chrono- 
logical order,  and  publish  them  in  book  form,  you  would 
have  a  literary  production  somewhat  similar  to  the  Tal- 
mud. As  in  the  Talmud,  the  scholar,  after  a  great  deal  of 
study,  would  be  able  to  discern  in  this  combination  of 
papers  that  they  contain  facts,  thoughts,  and  fancies,  and 
that  two  streams,  facts  (Halacha)  and  fancies  (Haggada), 
are  running  in  parallel  lines  through  the  whole  compilation. 
The  Talmud  has  had  a  career  to  match  its  peculiar 
composition.  When,  after  an  embryonic  existence  of 
more  than  five  hundred  years,  it  was  born,  that  is,  solidi- 
fied in  writing,  the  Emperor  Justinian,  as  early  as  553 
%C.E.,  attempted  to  suppress  it  by  a  special  interdictory 
Novella,  and  for  a  thousand  years  the  popes  and  kings 
and  emperors  have  hurled  their  anathemas,  bulls,  and 
edicts  of  confiscation  and  conflagration  at  this  book. 
At  one  period,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
during  less  than  fifty  years  it  was  publicly  binned  no  less 
than  six  times,  and  not  in  single  copies,  but  by  car-loads. 
Pope  Honorius  TV.  writes,  in  1286,  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  in  regard  to  that  "damnable  book,'"'  as  he 
calls  it,  and  admonishes  him  "  to  see  to  it  that  it  be  not 
read  by  anybody,  since  all  other  evils  flow  out  of  it." 
Clement  V.,  in  1307,  considered  it  his  duty  to  condemn 
the  Talmud  as  had  done  his  predecessors,  but,  gifted  with 
some  common-sense,  he  wished  to  know  something  of  it 


70  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

before  condemning  it,  and  there  was  none  to  tell  him. 
He  proposed,  therefore,  that  three  chairs,  for  Hebrew, 
Chaldee,  and  Aramaic,  should  be  founded,  as  the  three 
tongues  nearest  to  the  idiom  of  the  Talmud.  In  time,  he 
hoped,  some  university  might  be  able  to  produce  a  trans- 
lation of  the  mysterious  book.  The  consummation  of  the 
plan  never  came  to  pass.  Shortly  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  Reformation,  a  quarrel  ensued  between  Pfeffercorn 
and  Reuchlin  regarding  the  Talmud,  which,  we  may  say, 
was  the  cause  of  the  Reformation.  The  one,  in  be- 
half of  the  church,  declared  that  it  should  be  confiscated 
and  burned  ;  the  other,  aided  by  the  Humanists,  by  men 
like  Duke  Ulrich  of  Wuertemberg,  Frederick  of  Saxony, 
Ulrich  von  Hutten,  and  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam,  proclaimed 
the  high  iinpoi»tance  of  the  "Hebrew  truth,"  and  con- 
tended that  burning  a  book  was  no  aig'ument  against  it. 
If  it  contained  errors,  let  them  be  laid  open  and  their 
absurdity  shown.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  in  the  year 
1520,  when  the  first  edition  of  the  Talmud  went  through 
the  press  at  Venice,  Martin  Luther  burned  the  popeV 
bull  at  Wittenberg. 

But  now  let  us  see  how  the  book  originated,  and  at  the 
same  time  what  its  purpose  has  been.  Man  is  a  social 
being.  Standing  alone  by  himself,  he  is  the  weakest,  the 
most  miserable  of  all  creatures :  but  he  grows  strong  and 
invincible  through  society,  upon  the  benefaction  of  whicli 
he  is  dependent.  He  gives  to  society  and  receives  in 
exchange.  Human  society,  however,  cannot  exist  and 
will  perish  without  laws ;  even  the  outlaw  is  governed  by 
rules  which  the  leader  of  the  band  imposes  upon  the  law- 
opposing  society.  Laws  are  not  the  cause,  but  the 
sequence  of  certain  conditions.  Whenever  a  social  body 
feels  that  its  security  and  well-being  is  endangered  at  any 


THE   TALMUD  71 

point  by  a  peculiar  combination  of  circumstances,  it  passes 
a  law  by  which  an  accumulation  of  similar  circumstances 
is  to  be  prevented.  With  a  cessation  of  conditions,  the 
law  which  artilicially  prevented  them  falls  flatly  upon  the 
ground  and  becomes  superfluous  and  obsolete,  while  every 
arising  emergency  calls  for  new  legislation.  Though  the 
principle  of  law  is  always  the  same,  laws  and  legislation 
are  only  of  a  temporary  duration  and  subject  to  the 
changes  of  time.  Every  law  is  an  infringement  on  per- 
sonal liberty,  and,  therefore,  clashes  against  individual 
desires.  Although  every  one  concedes  that  laws  are 
salutary,  and  knows  that  he  can  prosper  only  under  the 
protection  of  law  and  order,  it  is,  notwithstanding  this 
fact,  not  at  all  strange  that  laws  are  broken  every  day, 
that  it  requires  a  firm  hand  to  lend  force  and  authority  to 
the  law,  and  that  if  a  law  is  not  supported  by  a  power 
equal  to  its  enforcement  it  becomes  a  dead  letter.  Lack- 
ing real  force,  the  legislators  of  old  supplied  their  laws 
with  an  imaginary  protector.  The}''  placed  their  legisla- 
tion under  the  protection  of  the  gods,  they  claimed  a 
divine  origin  for  them,  and  made  the  individual  responsi- 
ble for  his  actions  not  to  society  but  to  God,  before  whom 
there  was  no  secret,  and  wdio  had  unlimited  power  to 
reward  and  to  punish. 

As  long  as  laws  are  floating  and  unwritten,  simply  up- 
held by  custom,  they  may  change  or  vanish  without  creat- 
ing the  least  disturbance ;  but  no  sooner  is  a  law  reduced 
to  writing,  and  at  the  same  time  promulgated  as  a  decree 
of  the  divine  will,  than  an  entirely  different  rule  pre- 
vails. Such  laws,  no  matter  how  undesirable,  superannu- 
ated, and  obsolete,  can  never  be  changed  or  abolished.  It 
lies  not  wdthin  man's  province  to  question  or  to  criti- 
cise the  motives  of  the  divine  law-giver.     He  must  obey. 


72  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

and  if  a  law  which  had  been  salutary  a  few  huiidrtl 
years  ago  does  not  correspond  with  the  changed  condi- 
tions of  the  day,  he  can  neither  abolish  nor  change  it : 
there  remains  nothing  for  him  to  do  but  to  acknowledge 
his  inability  to  comprehend  the  infinite  wisdom  of  the 
divine  law-giver,  and  to  find  some  roundabout  way  to 
make  the  law  ineffective.  The  laws  which  had  grown  up 
with  the  Jewish  nation  had  been  collected  and  compiled, 
as  is  commonly  accepted,  by  Ezra,  and,  in  addition  to  the 
laws,  a  history  of  the  nation  had  been  embodied  into  the 
Bible.  To  give  authority  to  these  laws,  and  authenticity 
to  the  historical  part  of  the  book,  divine  origin  was 
claimed  for  both.  God  had  given  all  the  laws  ;  he  had 
communicated  them  on  Mt.  Sinai  to  Moses.  Moses  had 
transmitted  them  to  the  people,  and  thus  they  had  been 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  until  Ezra 
had  finally  reduced  them  to  writing.  After  these  written 
laws  had  answered  their  purpose  for  more  than  three  hun- 
dred years,  it  was  found  that  they  corresponded  no  longer 
to  the  demands  of  the  time.  They  were  found  to  be  too 
rigorous,  too  harsh.  While  the  letter,  being  divine,  could 
not  be  touched  while  the  theory  was  held  in  respect,  for 
practical  purposes,  a  new  legislation  arose.  To  supply  it 
with  authority,  it  was  claimed  that  not  only  was  it  implied 
in  the  written  law  and  could  be  traced  in  all  instances 
back  to  it,  but  that  this  additional  law  had  been  given  to 
Moses  on  Sinai,  to  be  handed  down  orally  to  the  people. 
The  more  complicated  the  political  conditions  of  the  peo- 
ple grew,  the  more  complicated  grew  this  oral  legislation. 
Every  new  law  was  covered  by  tlie.  authority  of  a  schol- 
arly man  who  claimed  to  have  received  the  knowledge  of 
it  from  his  teacher.  At  the  time  of  Hillel  and  Shamai, 
i.  e.,  at  the  beginning  of  the  common  era,  the  necessity 


THE   TALMUD  73 

was  felt  of  having  this  floating,  unwritten  legislation  class- 
ified, of  having  it  sifted,  and  of  detei-mining  what  was 
authentic  and  what  spurious.  Plillel,  after  having  made 
an  unsuccessful  attempt,  dropped  the  matter. 

The  Greek  method  of  philosophizing  had  found  a  fruit- 
ful soil  in  Palestine,  and  the  schools,  in  imitation  of  the 
Greek  philosophical  schools,  which  sprang  up  all  over  the 
country,  found  in  tliese  unwritten  laws  an  excellent  ma- 
terial for  cliscnssion.  Many  of  them  had  in  course  of 
time  become  obsolete,  others  had  lost  all  meaning ;  but, 
nevertheless,  they  afforded  the  disputants  a  basis  upon 
which  to  build  their  arguments.  Scholars  would  suggest 
fictitious  cases  such  as  could  never  happen  and  never  had 
happened,  to  show  by  them  how  the  laws  might  be  con- 
strued if  a  similar  case  should  offer  itself.  As  an  illus- 
tration, I  shall  mention  only  two  such  fictitious  cases 
under  discussion,  upon  Avhich  more  time  and  brain  was 
wasted  than  the  whole  business  was  worth.  A  long  dis- 
cussion and  disputation  arose  over  the  question  whether, 
if  an  egg  was  laid  on  a  holiday,  it  could  be  lawfully  eaten 
on  the  same  day  or  not.  Hillel  affirmed  it,  Shamai  stood 
for  the  negative.  Another  case  was:  Two  people  were 
holding  fast  to  a  cloak,  each  claiming  to  have  found  it, 
and  asserting  the  finder's  right  to  the  whole  of  it.  It  was 
decided  that  the  judge  be  instructed  to  let  each  swear 
that  at  least  half  of  it  belongs  to  him  b}'"  right,  and  then 
to  divide  it  among  them.  Such  disputations  gave  not 
only  food  to  the  imagination,  but  tliey  were  at  the  same 
time  a  good  mental  drill,  by  wliich  the  reasoning  faculties 
were  exercised  and  strengthened.  It  could  not  fail  that 
many  of  these  suppositions,  primarily  intended  for  a  mere 
mental  drill,  finally  slipped  into  the  bulk  of  the  unwritten 
law  claiming  Sinaitic  descent.      About  two  hundred  years 


74  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

after  the  beginning  of  the  common  era,  the  reduction  of 
the  whole  unwritten  law  into  a  code  was  completed  by 
Jehuda  the  saint,  and  was  brought  about  through  the  im- 
mense efforts  not  of  one  school  but  of  all,  not  through  one 
but  many  methods  of  comparison,  collection,  and  con- 
densation. It  is,  however,  a  mistake  to  think  that  this 
compilation  was  then  written  down.  Far  from  it ;  for 
over  three  hundred  years  it  was  transmitted  orally  from 
teacher  to  pupil.  The  first  compilation  of  the  unwritten 
or  oral  law  is  called  the  Mishna. 

The  Mishna  is  divided  into  six  sections,  which  are  sub- 
divided into  chapters  and  broken  up  into  524  paragraphs. 

Section  I.  On  seeds — contains  agrarian  laws,  though 
strangely  commencing  with  a  chapter  on  prayers.  It 
treats  of  the  tithe  and  of  the  dues  to  priests,  levites,  and 
the  poor,  from  the  products  of  the  land ;  of  the  Sabbati- 
cal year,  and  the  prohibited  mixture  in  plants,  animals, 
and  garments. 

Sec.  II.  Feasts.  Treats  of  Sabbaths,  feasts  and  fast 
days,  the  work  prohibited,  the  ceremonies  ordained,  the 
sacrifices  to  be  offered. 

Sec.  III.  Women.  Treats  of  betrothal,  marriage,  and 
divorce ;  also  of  vows. 

Sec.  IV.  Damages.  Includes  a  great  part  of  the  civil 
and  criminal  law.  Treats  of  buying  and  selling,  and  of 
the  ordinary  monetary  transactions.  It  treats,  further- 
more, of  Idolatry,  the  greatest  crime  known.  Of  wit- 
nesses, of  the  legal  punishment,  and  of  the  Synhedrion 
itself.  This  section  contains  also  the  so-called  sentences 
of  the  fathers,  the  sublimest  ethical  dicta  known  in  the 
history  of  religious  philosophy. 

Sec.  V.  Sacred  things.  Treats  of  sacrifices,  the  first- 
born, also  the  measurement  of  the  Temple. 


THE   TALMUD  76 

Sec.  VI.     Purifications.     Treats  of  the  various  levitical 
and  other  hj^gienic  laws.     Of  impure  things  and  persons. 

So  far  we  find  order  and  reguhition.  Although  most  of 
the  laws  contained  in  the  Mishna  had  become  already  ob- 
solete at  the  time  of  their  codification,  they  were  studied, 
however,  in  the  hope  that  the  Messiah  might  come  and 
establish  former  conditions,  when  a  knowledge  of  the  an- 
tique law  would  be  necessary.  Although,  as  I  have  said, 
the  Mishna  was  not  yet  written,  it  had  the  same  fate  as 
had  the  Bible  before.  Its  laws  were  considered  as  bind- 
ing and  unchangeable,  and  they  became,  in  their  turn,  a 
basis  of  development  and  discussion.  The  Mishna  be- 
came linked  to  the  Bible  ;  it  became  impregnated  ^yith 
and  obscured  by  speculations ;  new  traditions,  new  meth- 
ods sprang  up,  and  what  is  called  the  Gemara,  or  "  The 
Supplement,"  ensued.  During  two  hundred  years,  school 
after  school,  generation  after  generation  heaped  up 
around  the  mound  of  the  Mishna  all  that  might  be  able 
to  explain  it,  —  new  laws,  new  speculations  in  regard  to 
the  questions  of  life,  new  traditions  in  regard  to  the 
meaning  of  some  obscure  biblical  passage.  jNIixed  into 
this  heap  were  reflections  on  present  conditions,  the  say- 
ings of  renowned  scholars,  historical  facts,  proverbs, 
gnomes,  and  parables.  First  in  Tiberias,  in  Palestine, 
about  390,  and  about  427  in  Syra,  in  Babylonia,  was  this 
new  material  codified ;  and  not  before  one  hundred  years 
later,  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century,  were  both  of  "these 
codes,  the  Palestinian  and  Babylonian  Talmud,  reduced 
to  writing.  It  is  questionable  whether  there  was  a  double 
Geniarah  to  all  six  divisions,  or  even  to  five  of  the 
Mishna;  much,  however,  has  been  lost  that  may  have 
existed.  The  Babylonian  Talmud  is  about  four  times  as 
large  as  that  of  Jerusalem.     It  contains  thirty-six   treat- 


76  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

ises,  and  is  about  eleven  times  as  large  as  the  Mishna. 
With  the  prominent  commentaries  of  Rashi  and  Tosa- 
foth,  it  fills  exactly  2947  folio  leaves  in  twelve  volumes. 

From  the  earliest  times  of  the  Mishna  to  the  day  when 
both  Mishna  and  Gemarah  became  a  codified  unit,  dur- 
ing a  space  of  more  than  six  hundred  years,  we  are  able 
to  discern  the  conception  and  growth  of  some  new 
thouglits  which  had  been  foreign  to  Judaism  before.  Al- 
though the  appearance  of  angels  is  not  an  unfrequent 
occurrence  in  biblical  writings,  the  heavens  become  now 
populated  with  hosts  of  angels ;  we  are  told  of  their 
names,  and  informed  in  regard  to  their  official  positions. 
Whether  this  mania  had  been  imported  from  Persia,  or 
from  elsewhere,  we  cannot  say  with  certainty,  though 
it  is  a  fact  that  the  Talmud  testifies  to  a  belief  in  angels, 
and  abounds  with  a  most  fanciful  description  of  their  holy 
offices,  and  a  minute  reproduction  of  what  they  said  and 
did  at  different  occasions.  Another  was  the  belief  in  a 
material  existence  after  death ;  the  future  of  the  soul 
began  to  be  described  as  it  never  had  been  before.  A 
heaven  was  created  for  the  good,  and  a  hell  for  the 
wicked,  although  both  heaven  and  hell  remained  strictly 
non-sectai'ian.  The  good  of  all  nations  were  admitted  to 
eternal  bliss,  and  sheol  lost  some  of  its  terror  by  being 
made  only  a  temporary  abode.  Whether  Platonic  and 
agnostic  philosophy  or  rising  Christianity  have  inculcated 
the  new  idea  into  Judaism,  nobody  can  tell.  We  find  it 
in  the  Talmud,  although  the  plant  did  not  seem  to  pros- 
per, for  by  the  side  of  a  hope  in  a  future  existence  of  the 
soul  runs  the  much  stronger  hope  in -bodily  resurrection, 
which  was  to  take  place  at  the  end  of  days,  when  Israel 
should  be  restored  to  its  former  glory.  It  is  wonderful 
to  observe  what  a  remarkable  influence  was  exerted  upon 


THE   TALMUD  77 

the  Jews  by  the  Talmud  during  the  ages  of  darkness 
and  persecution.  A  book  of  such  tlimensions  as  was 
tlie  Tahnud  must  have  cost  a  fortune ;  to  copy  it  must 
liuve  taken  a  life-time.  Still,  we  find  every  place  where 
Jews  lived  supplied  with  several  copies.  No  sooner  wei-e 
they  destroyed  than  they  were  replaced  again.  Plow 
much  may  have  been  added  to  or  taken  away  from  the 
original  text  during  the  thousand  years  of  its  existence 
iu  the  form  of  manuscript,  from  its  first  publication, 
about  the  year  500,  to  the  appearance  of  its  first  printed 
edition,  in  about  1500,  is  impossible  to  ascertain.  That 
changes  have  taken  place,  and  that  we  do  not  possess  the 
true  original,  is  acknowledged  by  good  authorities.  Com- 
mentaries were  now  in  order,  and  commentaries  to  the 
commentaries  followed.  The  Jew  had  thus  a  library, — 
Bible  and  Talmud,  —  and  he  tried  to  enlarge  it.  It  was  a 
small  one,  but  he  had  a  library  while  his  oppressors  had 
none  ;  he  studied  and  drilled  his  mind,  while  his  masters 
could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  signed  their  names  with 
the  knob  of  their  swords.  The  historical  knowledge 
which  the  Jew  derived  from  the  Talmud  was  limited  in- 
deed, and  crowded  with  errors  ;  but  he  learned  from  it  at 
least  this  much,  that  the  nations  of  the  present  were  not 
the  nations  of  the  past.  The  poetry  of  the  Talmud  was 
fanciful  and  defective  ;  but  it  gave  food  to  his  imagination, 
and  sent  thrills  of  joy  or  sorrow  through  his  heart.  Like 
every  written  code  of  laws  for  which  infallibility  is 
claimed,  the  Talmud  grew,  in  course  of  time,  to  be  a  hard 
and  unbearable  task-master.  For  centuries  it  dragged 
Judaism  down  by  its  weight,  and,  though  preserving  it, 
had  hindered  its  natural  development.  Notwithstanding 
this  drawback,  there  is  no  better  proof  of  the  fact  that 
Judaism  had  been  constautly  changing  than  the  Talmud. 


78  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

If  Judaism  had  remained  the  same  as  it  had  been,  there 
would  have  been  no  need  for  the  Mishna ;  and  if  times 
had  not  changed,  the  Gemarah  would  not  have  been  pro- 
duced. Every  commentary  to  the  Talmud  was  a  new  at- 
tempt to  reconcile  Judaism  with  the  new  demands  of  the 
time.  At  the  time  when  the  compilation  of  the  Talmud 
was  closed,  Judaism  had  changed  again  ;  it  had  passed 
through  centuries  of  struggles;  its  last  heroic  efforts  had 
been  quenched  in  blood ;  but  the  Roman  empire,  in  its 
turn,  had  been  overrun  with  northern  barbarians,  and  had 
ceased  to  be.  Judaism  had  fallen  into  two  large  parts, 
and  they  were  slowly  and  surely  disintegrating.  A  new 
religion  had  been  born  ;  though  nourished  at  the  bosom  of 
Judaism,  it  had  turned  its  hand  against  the  mother.  Such 
events  do  not  pass  by  without  leaving  their  marks  beliind, 
and  the  laws,  customs,  and  habits  of  a  people  are  changed 
by  them. 

For  two  hundred  years  had  the  Talmud  been  in  exist- 
ence, when,  on  account  of  the  changes  which  again  had 
taken  place,  a  continuation  of  legislative  efforts  was 
greatly  needed  ;  and  when,  on  account  of  the  dismember- 
ment of  the  Jewish  people,  hope  for  new  legislation  had 
to  be  abandoned,  many  began  to  look  about  for  relief. 
To  them  it  appeared  as  if  the  teachers  of  the  Talmud  had 
gone  too  far,  and  that  relief  from  its  oppressive  laws 
could  be  had  only  by  a  return  to  the  Bible.  A  sect,  and 
a  powerful  sect  too,  arose,  and  split  the  Jewish  people  for 
centuries  into  two  hostile  camps.  It  was  the  sect  of  the 
Karaites,  i.  e .,  of  those  who  refused  to  accept  the  Tal- 
mud, and  who  placed  confidence'  in  the  letter  of  the 
Bible  alone.  The  Karaites  were  the  Jewish  Puritans  of 
the  eighth  century,  and  their  founder,  Anan  Ben  David. 


VII. 

ANAN  BEN   DAVID   AND   HIS   TBIE 

Political  factions,  revokitioiiary  parties,  or  religious 
sects  are  formed  by  combinations  of  circumstances,  by  a 
crystallization  of  thoughts  around  some  timely  idea,  and 
not  by  men,  as  it  is  generally  supposed.  No  man  can 
create,  nor  has  ever  a  man  created  a  faction,  a  party,  or  a 
sect  because  of  the  new  policy  or  the  new  truth  which  he 
had  to  proclaim.  Long  before  the  appearance  of  the 
leader,  the  faction  or  party  had  been  there  in  embryo  ; 
the  policy  which  he  advocated  or  the  truth  which  he  pro- 
mulgated had  been  anticipated  long  before  him,  and  the 
success  of  his  mission  was  due  to  this  fact.  The  great 
men  of  all  ages,  the  renowned  leaders  of  humanity,  have 
never  been  more  than  the  exponents  of  their  time.  Ap- 
pearing upon  the  stage  at  the  right  moment,  they  ex- 
pressed merely  what  others  had  been  thinking  all  the 
while,  but  could  not  express  as  well.  They  collected  and 
solidified  what  had  been  floating  in  the  air,  they  served 
merely  as  a  fuse  which  sets  off  a  powder  magazine.  When, 
after  the  explosion,  people  began  to  search  the  premises 
for  the  cause  of  the  eruption,  the  powder,  the  real  force, 
having  disappeared,  they  found  the  charred  fuse,  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  benefit  which  they  had  received  from  the 
result,  they  either  held  it  up  to  the  admiration  of  the 
world  as  the  great  beneficent  force  to  which  they  were  so 

79 


80  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

highly  indebted,  or  they  exhibited  it  as  the  abominable 
cause  of  their  misery. 

It  is  the  simplest  method  of  all  to  trace  an  idea  back  to 
the  brain  of  one  man  —  to  let  it,  so  to  say,  become  flesh  in 
him,  and  humanity  has,  therefore,  resorted  to  it  in  all 
cases.  No  event  of  importance  has  ever  happened  which 
has  not  been  ascribed  to  the  genius  or  enterprise  of  some 
man ;  but  we  forget  entirely  that  the  idea  which  he  has 
brought  forth  as  novel,  or  the  truth  which  he  has  pro- 
claimed as  new,  has  not  been  his  own.  We  forget  that  he 
had  been  acting  under  the  influence  which  his  time  has 
exerted  upon  him,  and  that  his  success  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  others  had  imbibed  and  inhaled  the  same  ideas  with 
which  he  had  been  nourished.  Whenever  we  meet  with 
some  such  astonishing  fact  in  history,  whenever  we  are 
told  that  the  stolid  masses  have  all  at  once  been  shaken 
out  of  their  restiveness,  and  that  after  some  struggle  the 
molecules  have  crystallized  around  new  centres,  and  have 
formed  new  parties  or  sects,  we  must  not  rest  contented 
when  we  have  found  the  fuse  which  has  set  off  the  pow- 
der, i.  e.,  the  great  man  who,  as  we  generally  term  it,  has 
caused  the  revolution ;  nay,  we  must  endeavor  to  find  by 
what  processes  the  acting  force  —  the  powder  —  has  been 
prepared  and  accumulated. 

At  the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  an  eruption  took 
place  within  Judaism,  which  rent  it  fairly  into  halves. 
The  consequences  of  this  disturbance  were  not  of  a  mo- 
mentary duration  ;  they  had  made  themselves  felt  during 
many  centuries,  and  have  not  even  to-day  disappeared  en- 
tirely in  those  districts  of  Russia  where  Jews  form  the 
bulk  oi  the  pojDulation.  The  hostility  of  the  tribes  of 
Judah  to  those  of  Israel,  or  of  the  Pharisees  to  the  Sad- 
ducees,  and  vice  versa,  was  put  into  the  shade  by  the  ani- 


ANAN    BEN    DAVJD    AND    HIS   TIME  81 

mosity  with  which  the  two  sects  into  whicli  Judaism  was 
then  split  waged  war  against  each  other.  The  standards 
around  which  they  rallied  were  to  the  one  faction,  the  so- 
called  Karaites,  the  Bible,  and  to  the  other  faction,  the  so- 
called  Rabbin ites,  the  Talmud.  It  was  not  difficult  to  dis- 
cover, after  the  explosion,  the  fuse  which  had  ignited  the 
powder,  and,  as  usual,  it  was  exhibited  by  both  parties  as 
the  sole  cause  of  the  eruption.  Anan  Ben  David,  the 
founder  of  Karaism,  was  canonized  by  the  Karaites  and 
anathematized  by  the  Rabbinites.  If  you  should  think 
that  Karaism  was  an  improvement  on  Talmudical  Judaism, 
or  that  it  has  taken  away  the  edge  of  that  legislation,  and 
that  therefore  Anan  had  been  welcomed  by  all  as  a  re- 
former, as  a  liberator  from  bonds  that  had  become  unbear- 
ably oppressive,  you  would  be  utterly  mistaken.  Tal- 
mudical Judaism,  or  Rabbinism,  as  we  shall  call  it  hence- 
forth, had  been  exclusive  and  seclusive,  but  Karaism  was 
so  to  a  still  higher  degree  ;  if  the  former  had  demanded 
obedience  to  the  most  untimely  and  therefore  obnoxious 
laws,  the  latter  imposed  still  greater  hardship  upon  the 
faithful.  To  become  a  Karaite  was  to  jump  from  the 
frying-pan  into  the  fire.  Karaism  offered  no  inducement 
to  its  sectarians  by  way  of  alleviation,  or  by  wa}'  of 
reconciling  its  legislation  with  the  demands  of  the  time. 
Quite  to  the  contrary,  it  burdened  its  votaries  with  new 
and  still  severer  restrictions  than  Rabbinism  had  ever  done 
before.  And  still,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  thousands 
and  thousands  rallied  around  its  standard,  the  learned  and 
the  unlearned,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  all  alike  willing  to 
submit  to  the  rigorous  dictates  of  the  new  sect.  Such 
strange  conduct  exhibited  by  the  masses  was  not  the  work 
of  one  man.  Anan  Ben  David  was  not  responsible  for 
this  mental  epidemir,  he  himself  had  caught  tlie  infection 


82  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

which  for  centuries  must  have  been  floating  and  accumu- 
lating in  the  air.  He  merely  marks  the  time  when  the 
disease  manifested  itself  in  discernible  symptoms.  But 
what  were  the  causes  of  Karaism? 

To  reach  these,  I  must  beg  of  you  to  follow  me  as 
patiently  as  you  can  back  through  the  centuries  in  two 
directions. 

During  the  time  that  the  Talmud  was  developing  within 
Judaism,  great  events  had  shaken  the  world.  What  the 
heroism  of  the  Maccabees  had  prevented  for  the  time 
being  had  been  accomplished  afterwards.  The  marriage 
between  Jewish  truth  and  Greek  philosophy,  interdicted 
by  the  Hasmoneans  for  a  while,  had  been  consummated  after 
all  in  spite  of  the  protest  of  the  parents  on  either  side. 
The  doors  of  the  bridal  jchamber  had  been  opened  by  the 
l)o]d  tent-maker  of  Tarsus.  Neo-Platonism  and  gnosti- 
cism had  signed  the  contract  as  witnesses,  and  Judaism  and 
paganism  had  thus  been  welded  together  into  Cln-istianity. 
The  new  organization  had  slowly,  inch  by  inch,  under- 
mined the  social,  political,  and  religious  conditions  of  the 
Roman  empire,  and  the  Roman  church  had  been  estab- 
lished upon  its  ruins.  To  describe  how  the  stream  of 
Christianity  had  grown  and  grown,  how  it  had  received 
into  its  waters  the  livino;  brooks  and  rivulets  of  ethical 
truth  as  well  as  the  stagnant  pools  of  pagan  superstition, 
how  it  had  inundated  Europe,  Africa,  and  a  part  of  Asia, 
would  take  more  time  than  I  now  have  to  spare.  So 
gradual  were  the  changes,  that  for  many  centuries  the 
pagan  world  confounded  Christianity  with  Judaism, 
while  the  Jews  looked  upon  it  as  some  sort  of  paganism. 
When  the  transformation  was  perfected  it  was  found 
that  merely  a  change  of  names  had  taken  place.  The 
temples  were  now  called  churches.     The  hosts  of  Greek 


ANAN    BEN    DAVID    AND    HIS   TIME  88 

gods  introduced  themselves  by  the  names  of  saints  and 
martyrs.  The  goddesses  assumed  the  names  of  Madon- 
nas, the  Caesars  called  themselves  popes.  The  new  order 
of  things  was,  however,  resting  upon  a  novel  basis.  All 
human  beings,  thus  was  the  logic  of  the  church,  had 
fallen  from  the  grace  of  God,  and  had  been  destined  by 
him  to  eternal  perdition.  Only  through  the  intervention 
of  the  church,  or,  what  was  the  same,  through  the  belief 
in  its  founder,  could  men  be  saved  from  eternal  doom. 
The  centre  of  all  human  existence  was  thus  transferred  to 
the  life  to  come.  The  fear  of  hell,  more  than  the  joys  of 
heaven,  had  brought  to  the  church  its  votaries,  and  thus 
supplied  it  with  strength. 

The  Jews,  scattered  about  in  small  congregations  over 
the  whole  Roman  empire,  still  reeling  from  tlie  shock 
which  their  denationalization  had  given  them,  had  been 
unable  to  enter  upon  a  successful  controversy  with  the 
Christian  church.  Not  alone  had  the  antagonist  become 
all-powerful,  and  was  wont  to  answer  arguments  with 
a  club,  but  he  was  so  slippery  that  he  escaped  their  grip 
whenever  they  clasped  their  arguments  around  him.  He 
pretended  to  be  the  true  Jew,  to  adore  the  same  God  of 
Israel,  to  hold  in  high  honor  their  ancestors ;  he  acknowl- 
edged their  Jaw-giver  —  Moses,  and  still  more  the  proph- 
ets Avho  followed  him.  lie  conceded  that  their  law 
was  of  divine  origin,  and  still  tliey  could  not  hold  him  to 
the  consequences  of  his  concessions  ;  he  adored  at  the 
same  time  the  image  of  a  crucified  man  as  his  God,  he 
spoke  of  God  as  having  had  a  son  by  a  mortal  woman,  the 
very  thought  of  which  was  blasphemy  to  them.  True,  he 
sang  the  same  psalms  as  they  did,  but  he  sang  them  in 
adoration  of  mortals,  though  he  called  them  saints.  Of 
his  soul-saving  theories  the  Jew  could  understand  but  so 


84  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

much,  that  a  man  who  does  not  conform  with  the  laws  of 
God  might  be  punished  for  his  disobedience  in  a  life  to 
come,  and  for  fear  of  such  punishment  he  clung  therefore 
more  desperately  than  ever  to  the  law  which  even  his  op- 
ponents acknowledged  to  be  divine,  and  he  was  anxious 
that  it  should  be  protected  by  all  kinds  of  fences  against 
infringement.  Christianity  was  to  him,  therefore,  nothing 
but  a  new  form  of  idolatry. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  centrny,  there  arose 
suddenly  in  Arabia  another  new  religion.  With  unpre- 
cedented rapidity  it  spread  ;  like  a  whirlwind,  Moham- 
medanism shook  the  world.  In  less  than  a  century  it  had 
subjugated  all  Asia  and  Africa,  and  even  a  part  of  Eu- 
rope. The  African  churcli,  which  had  been  so  trouble- 
some before,  was  forever  wiped  from  the  earth.  Jerusa- 
lem, the  burial-place  of  the  Christian  god,  could  not 
withstand  the  scimitar  of  the  caliph,  and  it  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Mohammedans,  never  to  be  brought  back  into 
Christian  possession.  Even  Persia,  from  which  the  waves 
of  the  Roman  empire  had  recoiled  on  several  occasions, 
—  Persia,  which  had  withstood  all  proselyting  efforts  of 
Christianity,  —  was  not  only  conquered  but  converted  to 
the  new  religion. 

It  had  again  been  the  fate  of  the  Jew  to  be  an  idle  spec- 
tator. It  was  perhaps  fortunate  for  him  that  he  had  lost 
his  nationality  long  before,  for  if  he  had  still  possessed  a 
land  of  his  own  he  might  then  have  seen  his  last  day ;  but 
his  peculiar  isolated  condition  preserved  him.  The  new 
religion  recognized  him,  it  appreciated  his  sacred  writings, 
it  acknowledged  his  descent.  The  Koran  was  full  of 
quotations  from  his  Bible.  It  accepted  the  same  one  God 
as  he  did  ;  it  accepted  prophetism,  merely  adding  Mo- 
hammed to  the  number  of  those  who  had  previously  been 


ANAN   BEN   DAVID    AND    HIS   TIME  85 

chosen  to  be  the  bearers  of  God's  message  to  man.  Mo- 
hammedanism, like  Judaism,  opposed  idohitiy  with  all  its 
might.  Muliammed's  disciples  hated  idolatrous  practices 
as  did  the  Jews.  Their  mosques  harbored  no  image,  as 
did  the  Christian  churches.  The  Mussulman  offered  his 
prayer  as  did  the  Jew,  and  reading  the  Koran  was  made 
obligatory  to  him  as  had  been  reading  the  Bible  to  the 
Jew.  Like  an  oriental  plant,  Mohammedanism  had  grown 
into  bloom  during  one  night.  It  had  passed  within  two 
centuries  through  all  the  phases  of  philosophy,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  eighth  century  we  find  it  upon  a  philosophical 
height  which  Ciiristianity  did  not  reach  for  some  centu- 
ries. Culture  and  civilization  had  followed  the  crescent. 
Universities  had  sprung  up  and  flourished  from  one  end  of 
the  vast  Mohammedan  realm  to  the  other.  Arabic  had  be- 
come suddenly  the  flexible  language  of  science.  The 
Jew,  who,  though  there  was  a  little  unpleasantness,  found 
a  more  congenial  master  in  Islam  than  in  Christianity, 
began  to  flourish  under  Mohammedan  rule.  He  availed 
himself  of  the  opportunities  which  were  offered  him.  and 
gave  himself  up  to  study.  A  grave  question  now  loomed 
up  before  him.  To  a  friendly-inclined  neighbor  he  was  to 
explain  why  he  could  or  would  not  accept  a  doctrine 
which  the  whole  world.  Pagans,  Persians,  and  Christians, 
had  accepted,  a  religion  which  was  but  a  continuation  of 
his  own  and  as  free  as  that  from  superstition  and  idolatry. 
Homer  had  before  been  pitted  against  the  Bible,  but  like 
a  bubble  had  his  fantastic  poem  been  dissolved  as  soon 
as  it  touched  this  rock  of  Jewish  thought.  The  Xew 
Testament  had  been  brougrht  against  it  into  the  field,  but 
this  literary  production  could  not  stand  except  ui)on  the 
pedestal  of  the  Bible  ;  the  part  remaining  always  less  tlian 
the  whole,  the  New  Testament  would  have  killed  itself  by 


86  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

uny  attempt  to  destroy  the  Old  Testament.  Now  the 
Koran  was  produced  as  a  foe  worthy  of  its  steel.  Mo- 
hammedanism woidd  accept  no  go-between,  and  Moses  was 
the  only  champion  which  it  would  allow  to  oppose  its 
hero,  Mohammed.  The  Jews  under  Mohammedan  rule 
found,  therefore,  by  force  of  these  circumstances,  their 
attention  directed  to  the  Bible ;  but  a  strange  thing  had 
happened,  they  had  forgotten  their  native  tongue  and  with 
it  the  Bible.  The  Hebrew  language  had  ceased  to  be  a 
living  language,  and  its  study  had  been  neglected.  The 
Talmud  and  its  study  had  taken  away  so  much  of  the 
scholar's  time  that  the  Bible,  as  something  that  was  be- 
yond discussion,  and  the  truth  of  which  was  not  to  be 
doubted,  had  received  none  of  his  attention.  For  a  stu- 
dent it  was  sufficient  proof  for  an  argument  when  he 
heard  the  words,  "  it  is  written,"  and  he  cared  then  little 
where  it  was  written,  in  what  connection  the  quoted  sen- 
tence was  written,  or  whether  there  was  any  truth  in  its 
statement.  When  the  attention  of  the  Jews  was  thus 
forcibly  drawn  to  the  Bible,  they  found  that  they  could 
not  even  read  it.  But  so  strong  grew  the  pressure,  and 
so  highly  was  felt  the  need  of  knowing  what  was  written, 
that  some  of  the  scholars  who  were  yet  able  to  read  and 
understand  Hebrew  contrived  a  way  to  make  its  study 
more  popular  and  the  Bible  more  accessible  to  the  masses. 
They  invented  the  vowel  points,  those  little  dots  and 
strokes  under  the  Hebrew  consonants ;  a  translation 
of  the  Bible  in  tlie  Arabic  language  was  also  produced. 
A  more  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  coupled  with  the 
still  unshaken  belief  that  it  was  the  word  of  God,  showed 
now  to  the  student  how  far  away  the  Talmud  had  wan- 
dered from  the  original  source.  If  the  Bible  was  the 
true  word  of  God,  it  could  have  but  one  meaning ;  if,  for 


AN  AN    BEN    DAV^ID   AND    HIS    TIME  87 

instance,  the  law  ordained  '•  Thou  shalt  not  keep  fire  on  the 
Sabbath  in  any  of  thy  habitations,"  why  should  a  lamp 
be  allowed  to  be  kept  burning,  even  if  it  tvas  lit  before 
the  beginning  of  the  Sabbath?  The  question  was  not 
liow  unpleasing  or  how  difficult  it  was  to  comply  with 
such  a  commandment ;  if  this  was  God's  word,  man  must 
comply  with  it. 

We  must  now  turn  our  eyes  in  another  direction. 
Ever  since  the  Jews  had  been  transported  to  Babylonia 
they  had  prospered  there.  It  seemed  that  the  countries 
stretching  between  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  had  never 
lost  their  attractiveness  to  the  Jews.  While  only  a  few 
had  returned  to  Palestine,  the  masses  had  remained. ;  they 
had  multiplied  and  prospered,  and,  with  few  exceptions, 
they  had  enjoyed  a  better  fate  and  a  more  independent 
position  there  than  their  brethren  had  in  Palestine.  The 
fate  that  had  overcome  Jerusalem  had  left  them  compara- 
tively unharmed.  It  seems  that  the  Babylonian  Jews  had 
been  governed  by  a  prince  or  governor  of  their  own  race, 
who  was  called  Resh  Galuta,  or  Prince  of  the  Exile.  His 
exalted  office  was  hereditary,  though  subject  to  confirma- 
tion of  the  royal  court.  After  the  short  stay  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great,  the  eastern  provinces  had  fallen  back  to 
native  kings,  who  allowed  the  Jews  to  live  in  undisturbed 
peace  as  they  had  before.  In  vain  had  the  Romans 
attempted  to  conquer  these  eastern  districts.  From  Cras- 
sus  to  Julian,  they  had  always  been  repelled.  Finally,  the 
Mohammedans  succeeded  where  the  Romans  had  failed, 
the  laws  of  Zoroaster  were  replaced  by  those  of  the 
Koran,  the  holy  fires  were  extinguished  forever,  and  the 
temples  changed  into  mosques.  Yet  the  condition  of 
the  Jews  remained  unchanged.  They  preserved  their  own 
jurisdiction,  and  the  Prince  of  the  Exile   was  treated  as 


88  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

their  equal  by  the  caliphs.  Still,  in  spite  of  the  outward 
pomp  with  which  this  office  was  surrounded,  the  throne 
of  the  Resh  Galuta  was  rotten  within,  and  its  days  were 
numbered.  Through  the  development  of  the  Talmud  two 
universities,  Sura  and  Pumbedita,  had  risen  into  promi- 
nence, and  the  president  of  each  of  these  schools,  the 
gaon,  had  become  a  power  in  the  land.  His  decision  in 
regard  to  what  was  lawful  could  not  be  overruled  by  any 
authority,  and  it  could,  therefore,  not  fail  that  quarrels 
between  the  two  gaons  themselves,  and  between  them  and 
the  Resh  Galuta,  were  of  frequent  occurrence.  It  became 
finally  a  question  of  polity  to  the  gaon,  who  was  to  be 
confirmed  as  prince,  and  to  the  prince  who  was  to  be 
appointed  to  the  presidency  of  one  of  these  universities. 
The  higher  the  authority  of  the  Talmud  rose,  the  higher 
rose  the  authority  of  the  two  gaons,  and  in  the  same 
proportion  in  which  that  office  grew  in  importance  did  the 
authority  of  the  Resh  Galuta  fall  off;  when,  therefore, 
under  Mohammedan  rule,  the  study  of  the  Bible  was 
revived,  the  friends  of  the  gaons  rallied  around  the  Tal- 
mud, while  the  friends  of  the  Prince  of  the  Exile  natu- 
rally rallied  around  the  Bible. 

Such  were  the  social,  political,  and  religious  conditions 
of  the  time  when  Anan  Ben  David  appeared  upon  the 
stage.  In  the  year  761  the  Resh  Galuta,  Solomon,  had 
died  without  leaving  a  son,  and  the  office  was  to  descend 
upon  his  nephew  Anan  Ben  David,  who  had  been  edu- 
cated in  the  far  East  and  had  come  to  Bagdad  at  a  time 
when  the  chance  of  ascending  the  princely  throne  had 
offered  itself  to  him.  He  is  known  to  have  been  well 
versed  in  Talmudical  knowledge,  but  his  attention  having 
been  called  previously  to  a  study  of  the  Bible,  through 
the  learned  controversies  which   were  carried  on  at  his 


ANAN    BEN    DAVID   AND    HIS    TIME  8P 

time  between  Jews  and  Mussulmans,  lie  had  opposed 
already  several  ordinances  of  the  Talmud.  It  seems  that 
he  had  been  outspoken  in  his  views,  and  that,  as  a  near 
relative  of  the  prince  and  aspirant  to  the  throne,  he  had 
expressed  himself  as  too  much  in  favor  of  the  Bible,  so 
that  the  antagonistic  party,  headed  by  the  two  gaons, 
could  not  consider  him  a  desirable  candidate  for  the  im- 
portant position.  The  two  gaons  being,  as  it  happened, 
brothers,  pooled,  therefore,  their  issues,  and,  in  spite  of 
the  efforts  of  Anan's  not  less  numerous  party,  they  so 
managed  that  by  intrigue  the  caliph  Abugufar  Almansor 
appointed  Anan's  younger  brother,  Chananja,  for  the 
princely  office.  He  was  even  accused  of  being  an  enemy 
of  the  caliph,  and  it  was  alleged  that  he  had  planned  to 
raise  the  standard  of  revolt,  and  as  a  dangerous  partisan 
he  was  imprisoned.  He  barely  escaped  an  infauKnis 
death  on  the  gallows,  and  was  forced  to  leave  the  place 
where  his  pride  had  been  thus  humiliated.  He  emi- 
grated to  Palestine,  and  settled  down  in  Jerusalem,  where 
he  built  a  synagogue,  and  now  he  threw  away  ever}^  dis- 
guise and  raised  openly  the  standard  of  revolt  against  the 
Talmud  and  its  teachers.  On  account  of  his  referring  in 
all  religious  matters  to  the  letter  of  the  Scripture,  called 
in  Hebrew  Mikra,  his  followers  called  themselves  Ka- 
raites. He  wrote  three  books  in  support  of  his  system ;  a 
commentary  to  the  Pentateuch,  a  treatise  in  regard  to  re- 
ligious duties,  and  a  third  one  in  Arabic,  all  three  of  which 
have,  unfortunately,  been  lost.  In  order  to  conform  with 
the  biblical  ordinance,  he  introduced  a  great  many  changes. 
He  changed  the  calendar,  and  t!ius  the  time  of  holidays. 
He  prohibited  marriages  between  relatives,  which  before 
had  been  allowed ;  he  observed  the  Sabbath  with  a  rigor- 
ism which  was   to  be  matched   only  by   the  Puritans   a 


90  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

thousand  years  later.  No  candle  was  to  be  lit,  no  fire  to 
be  built,  even  in  winter.  Nobody  was  allowed  to  leave 
the  house  on  the  Sabbath.  The  sick  had  to  remain  with- 
out aid,  and  not  even  the  act  of  circumcision  was  to  be 
performed  on  the  Sabbath.  To  prayers  he  objected,  as 
not  contained  inthe  Bible,  and,  in  imitation  of  the  incohe- 
rent readings  of  the  Koran,  he  offered  readings  from 
the  Bible.  The  Karaites  and  Rabbinites  now  began 
to  assail  each  other ;  but  the  fiercer  their  controversy 
grew,  the  greater  grew  the  gulf  that  separated  them. 
How  long  Anan  governed  the  new  party  is  unknown. 
His  disciples,  however,  could  not  forget  him  after  he  had 
died,  and  they  inserted  a  prayer  for  his  soul  in  the  Sab- 
bath service,  which  is  read  even  to-day  in  Karaitic  congre- 
gations. His  successors  went  still  further  in  the  attempt 
of  conforming  their  present  life  with  the  legislation  of  a 
by-gone  time.  The  principle  of  free  biblical  research  and 
interpretation  once  established,  there  was  no  end  of  differ- 
ent views  and  methods  to  reconcile  the  divine  word  with 
the  times,  and  Karaism,  which  otherwise  might  have 
become  a  power,  broke  up  into  a  legion  of  subordinate 
sects  which,  disagreeing  in  all  other  points,  agreed  only 
in  one,  their  negation  of  the  Talmud. 

If  we  ask  why  people  burdened  themselves  so  cheer- 
fully with  the  performance  of  religious  rites  which  must 
have  been  obnoxious  to  them,  there  remains  for  us  but 
one  answer :  the  theory  of  salvation,  a  child  of  Christi- 
anity, which  had  been  unknown  before  to  Judaism,  had 
finally  infected  it  with  its  virus.  The  Cljristian  world' 
believed  stanclily  that,  unless  a  man  subniitted  to  all  the 
prescriptions  of  the  church,  he  was  etenially  lost.  The 
Mohammedan,  too,  promised  rewards  to  the  faithful  per- 
former of  the  ordinances  of  the  Koran  in  a  life  to  come, 


ANAN   BEN    DAVID   AND    HIS    TIME  91 

and  threatened  with  eternal  perdition  the  offender.  The 
Jews  of  that  period  had  imbibed  these  doctrines.  How 
could  they  have  helped  it,  when  the  whole  social  atmos- 
phere was  impregnated  with  it  ?  They  had  learned  to 
believe  in  a  material  existence  after  death,  and  they 
dreaded  tlie  [ihantom  of  their  own  imagination,  the  eter- 
nal punishment.  How  could  they  obtain  reward  and 
how  avoid  punishment?  Simply  by  obedience  to  the 
laws  of  God.  But  which  were  the  laws  of  God?  The 
Karaites  said  they  were  all  contained  in  the  Bible,  and 
the  Rabbinites  could  not  deny  it,  though  they  allowed  an 
oral  and  traditional  law  to  run  in  parallel  lines  with  it. 
On  the  one  side,  the  Jew  was  entreated  by  the  Christian 
to  save  his  soul,  but  the  horror  of  his  image-worship 
drove  him  from  the  baptismal  font ;  on  the  other  side,  the 
Mohammedan  threatened  him  with  eternal  perdition,  and 
invited  him  to  enter  paradise  by  the  gate  opened  through 
Mohammed,  a  prophet  whose  fatalism  the  Jew  could  not 
subscribe.  Both  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism  con- 
ceded, however,  that  his  scriptures  were  the  oldest,  they 
both  agreed  that  they  were  the  outpouring  of  the  divine 
will,  and  that  God  had  been  their  orioinator.  PI  is  log-ic 
told  him,  therefore,  to  seek  safety  alid  salvation  in  a 
strict  adherence  to  the  commandments  of  that  book 
which  all,  without  exception,  called  divine.  The  time 
had  not  yet  come  when  biblical  criticisni  should  make 
its  first  attempts  to  break  the  spell  of  supernaturalism, 
but  Karaism  was  the  initiatory  step  to  it.  Karaism 
alienated  the  Jew  still  more  from  the  world  in  which  he 
lived ;  and  it  became  the  source  of  many  customs  and 
rites  which  influenced  and  shaped  the  life  of  Judaism 
during  the  Middle  Ages ;  it  furthermore  led  to  mysticism, 
to  an  interprptation  of  the    biblical  letter  which  only  the 


92  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

wildest  tliglit  of  fancy  would  dare  to  attempt.  But  "  it  is 
au  ill  wind  that  blows  nobody  good,"  Karaism  broke  at 
the  same  time  the  spell  of  authority  which  the  Talmud 
had  drawn  around  free  thought,  and  it  restored  to  the 
individual  what  had  been  taken  away  from  him,  the  right 
to  seek  for  truth  by  himself.  It  prepared  the  way  for 
men  like  Ibn  Ezra  and  Maimonides.  It  finally  forced 
the  Rabbinites  to  return  to  the  source  from  which,  as 
they  claimed,  they  had  drawn  their  supply.  The  classi- 
cal language  of  the  Bible,  almost  forgotten  and  replaced 
by  the  Talmudical  jargon,  was  called  to  life  again,  and 
yielded  a  few  centuries  later  a  second  harvest  in  the  new 
Hebraic  poetry  of  Spain.  Taken  in  all,  Karaism  was  not 
so  much  a  return  to  original  ideas  as  a  change  of  condi- 
tions which  had  outlived  their  usefulness,  for  new  ones. 
The  new  needs  not  always  to  be  tlie  better,  but,  take  it  as 
you  please,  the  revolt  of  the  Karaites  against  tradition 
gives  evidence  that  Judaism  had  changed  again.  New 
avenues  of  thought  had  been  opened,  new  ideas  had 
spread,  new  conditions  had  been  established,  and  for 
better  or  worse  Judaism  could  not  remain  inactive.  The 
hopeless  task  of  lacing  the  present  into  a  legislative 
corselet  which  had  fitted  the  Jewish  people  in  its  infancy 
a  thousand  yeurs  ago  may  appear  to  us  an  inexplicable 
folly  at  first  sight,  but  a  closer  examination  will  reveal  to 
us  that  it  was  tlie  frantic  efforts  of  Judaism  to  escape  the 
net-work  with  which  Christianity,  on  one  side,  and  Islam, 
on  the  other,  had  entangled  it.  It  was  the  yearning  for  a 
definition  of  what  Judaism,  their  Judaism,  meant,  and, 
though  not  at  present,  it  found  a  more  gratifying  solu- 
tion some  centuries  later  in  the  philosophy  of  Moses 
Maimonides. 


VIII. 

SAADIA   AND   HIS   TBIE 

Unless  the  thread  of  life  is  suddenly  broken  by  some 
accident,  the  separation  of  soul  and  body,  of  the  vital 
forces  and  the  material  which  they  enliven,  is  rather  a 
slow  and  graded  process.  After  a  being  has  reached 
maturity,  we  observe  that  it  begins  to  decline,  it  fades 
away  by  degrees  ;  under  normal  conditions,  it  loses  one  of 
its  faculties  after  the  other,  until  finally  its  last  hour 
strikes  and  it  is  no  more.  The  desire  to  stay  still  a  while 
longer,  the  hope  to  be  preserved  for  yet  another  day,  the 
struggle  against  the  final  dissolution,  are  too  w^ell  known 
for  any  need  to  enlarge  upon  them.  Tlie  same  slow  and 
graded  process  of  dissolution  can  be  observed  under 
normal  conditions  also  in  the  world  of  ideas.  Ideas  are 
as  mortal  as  are  men.  Tliey  take  shape  and  form  in  some 
institution,  and  after  having  passed  the  zenith  of  their 
usefulness  they  decline,  and  the  careful  observer  may 
follow  them  through  all  the  stages  of  disintegration. 
Political,  commercial,  and  religious  institutions  have  thus 
sprurjg  into  life,  luive  existed  for  some  shorter  or  longer 
period  of  time,  and  then  passed  away  to  make  room 
for  tlieir  children,  for  new  thoughts,  for  new  ideas.  When- 
ever PMch  an  institution  is  on  its  way  to  the  grave,  we 
cannot  fail  to  note  some  tokens  which  betray  the  ap- 
proaching end,  for  tliey  will  as  surely  appear  as  w  ill  the 

»8 


94  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

wrinkles  in  the  face  and  the  silvery  hair  on  the  head  of 
an  old  man. 

When  political,  commercial,  or  religious  institutions 
are  on  the  decline,  we  find  that  they  have  a  tendency 
to  appear  in  greater  pomp  than  they  have  ever  done  in 
their  younger  years ;  like  some  aged  people,  they  wish  to 
hide  their  feebleness  under  a  gay  garment,  pretending  to 
be  stronger  than  ever  before.  The  most  magnificent 
temples  were  built  at  the  time  when  paganism  was 
breathing  its  last ;  the  most  gorgeous  services  were  in- 
stituted in  the  Roman  church  shortly  before  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  the  last  days  of  Rome  were  gilded  by  the  display  of 
unparalleled  luxury.  We  may  set  it  down  as  a  rule  that 
wlienever  or  wherever  an  institution  appeals  to  the  senses 
of  its  adherents  and  supporters,  and  endeavors  to  attract 
and  hold  them  by  the  disj)lay  of  luxury,  that  its  last  days 
are  near  at  hand.  A  second  token  which  marks  the 
decline  of  an  institution  is  that  its  offices  cease  to  be 
honorable,  that  their  emoluments  rise,  that  they  are 
sought  for  for  the  sake  of  the  fat  salaries  connected  with 
them,  and  that  corruption  is  openly  and  shamelessly  prac- 
tised. A  third  token  of  the  end,  especially  of  religious 
institutions,  is  that  the  conscientious  men  of  the  declin- 
ing age  endeavor  with  all  tlieir  might  to  set  things  aright, 
and  to  reconcile  the  present  with  the  past.  The}^  are  not 
yet  ready  to  enter  the  life  to  come,  they  are  not  yet  fully 
prepared  to  accept  the  new  ideas  which  are  floating 
through  the  air,  lacking  materialization  ;  their" habits  and 
customs  bind  them  yet  to  the  past,  their  thoughts  are  still  ■ 
slipping  along  the  old  and  customar}^  tracks,  and  are 
either  too  weak  or  too  indifferent  to  cut  new  ruts,  and 
yet  they  feel  that  the  old  has  outlived  its  usefulness. 
They  behold   their  errors  and  inconsistencies,  and  they 


SAADIA   AND   HIS   TIME  95 

endeavor  to  persuade  themselves  and  others  tliat  a 
method  could  be  found  by  which  new  lii'e  could  be  in- 
fused into  the  old  fragile  body.  The  age  in  which  the 
importance  of  an  institution  is  constantly  dwelt  upon, 
and  the  urgency  and  necessity  of  its  support  is  continually 
preached,  is  always  the  forerunner  of  a  new  era.  Defence 
is  always  a  token  of  weakness.  In  their  younger  and 
more  vigorous  years  ideas  are  found  to  be  aggressive,  but 
when  they  fall  back  and  begin  to  apologize,  to  demon- 
strate their  right  for  existence,  or  to  defend  their  lives,  it 
is  a  sure  token  of  their  approaching  old  age  and  conse- 
quent demise. 

We  have  now  followed  Judaism  through  several  phases 
of  its  development.  We  have  seen  it  centre  around  a 
sanctuary,  a  temple,  for  a  [)eriod  of  a  thousand  years  ;  we 
have  watched  the  rise  and  decline  of  the  idea  upon  which 
the  temple,  priesthood,  ceremonial,  and  all,  have  rested. 
We  liave  noticed  the  corruption  which  had  set  in  during 
its  last  days,  and  the  disrepute  in  which  the  belief  had 
fallen  that  God  was  pleased  with  sacrifices  and  burnt  of- 
ferings. Under  normal  conditions  the  demise  of  that 
institution  might  have  been  retarded  for  a  few  centuries, 
but  the  destruction  of  .Jerusalem  was  an  unforeseen  acci- 
dent and  had  accelerated  the  end.  With  Rabbi  Jochanan 
Ben  Saccai  a  second  pei'iod  began  and  a  new  idea  grew 
up  into  matnrit}' ;  again  a  life  of  a  thousand  years  seemed 
to  have  been  allotted  to  Rabbinical,  or  Talmudical  Juda- 
ism, and  when  the  days  of  that  term  had  passed  by^  we 
note  that  the  same  process  of  disintegration  began  to  put 
in  its  disastrous  work.  Rabbinical  Judaism  had  crystal- 
lized around  the  Prince  of  the  Exile,  and  the  two  univer- 
sities of  Sura  and  Pumbedita.  These  places  of  learning 
had  grown  in  course  of  time  to  be  for  Judaism  what  the 


96  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

temple  had  been  before  for  the  Israelites.  The  decisions 
of  the  gaons,  the  presidents  of  these  schools,  had  the  force 
of  oracles.  The  eyes  of  all  Jews,  no  matter  where  they 
resided,  were  directed  towards  these  two  places,  the  word 
of  a  gaon  was  law  and  was  obediently  accepted  as  a  kind 
of  infallible  manifestation  of  the  will  of  God.  With  the 
approach  of  the  old  age  of  this  institution,  all  the  tokens 
of  decline  which  I  have  enumerated  before  became  more 
and  more  discernible.  The  office  of  the  Prince  of  Exile 
was  sought  for  as  a  good  sinecure,  but  it  was  devoid  of 
religious  or  political  force  ;  the  two  universities  were  up- 
held by  artificial  means  and  the  dignity  of  the  presidents 
was  reduced  to  a  shadow ;  in  fact,  the  gaons  formed  with 
the  prince  a  corrupt  ring  to  squeeze  from  the  people  not 
only  a  good  income  for  themselves  but  also  the  sums  with 
which  to  bribe  the  court  of  the  cali]^h.  Lawsuits  upon 
which  they  had  to  pass  judgment  were  decided  in  favor 
of  that  party  who  was  willing  to  pay  the  highest  bribe, 
and  not  according  to  the  justice  of  the  case.  The  idea 
upon  which  the  institution  was  resting  had  outlived  its 
usefulness.  A  thousand  years  before,  the  priest  was 
compelled  to  go  ;  now,  the  infallible  rabbi  had  to  follow 
him  into  exile.  A  thousand  years  before,  Judaism  had 
broken  through  the  boundary  lines  of  Palestine  and  had 
spread  all  over  the  East ;  now,  the  time  had  come  when  it 
should  spread  all  over  the  world.  Karaism,  returning  to 
the  Bible  and  proclaiming  freedom  of  research,  had  been 
the  initiatory  step  to  the  realization  of  that  mission,  and 
it  became  a  mere  question  of  time  when  the  universities 
of  Sura  and  Pumbedita  or  the  office  of  Prince  of  Exile 
should  be  abolished,  and  Judaism,  freed  from  local  influ- 
ence, sliould  become  the  cosmopolitan  religion  which  it  is ; 
at  home  everywhere,  restricted  by   no  human  authority 


SAADIA    AND    HIS   TIME  97 

and  free  to  carve  out  its  destiny  according  to  the  times 
and  to  its  surroundings.  For  a  short  moment  the  flicker- 
ing lamp  of  the  university  of  Sura  flared  up  again  and 
shed  for  the  last  time  a  light  over  the  eastern  world ;  for 
a  short  moment  the  dying  institution  rallied  its  last  force 
for  a  last  struggle  for  life,  but  the  sword  of  death  cuuld 
not  be  stayed. 

Saadia,  one  of  the  last  gaons,  is  not  only  a  remarkable 
historical  personage  on  account  of  his  adventuresome 
career,  but  much  more  on  account  of  the  herculean  efforts 
with  which  he  attempted  to  prop  up  the  falling  structure. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  wise  man  who  elicits  our  admira- 
tion, as  the  philosopher  who  exhausts  himself  in  the  vain 
attempt  to  make  himself  and  others  believe  what  his  and 
their  common-sense  rejected.  It  was  the  old  story  over 
and  over  again  ;  times  had  changed,  and  people  were  not 
ready  to  admit  it;  the  conscientious  were  embarrassed 
and  endeavored  to  reason  away  their  embarrassment ; 
their  learning  showed  to  them  the  fallacies  of  the  old 
system,  but  their  early  associations,  habits,  and  customs 
objected  to  a  decided  forward  movement.  Like  the  Lone 
Fisherman  in  Evangeline,  they  first  killed  the  fish  with 
the  clubs  of  their  arguments  and  then  showed  their  pity 
and  commiseration  by  patting  and  fanning  it. 

Saadia  was  the  fii:st  Jewish  philosopher  who  tried  his 
hand  in  establishing  Judaism  upon  a  philosophical  basis. 
He  endeavored  to  show  that  it  was  a  rational  religion  and 
the  only  religion  that  could  stand  the  test  of  reason  ;  but, 
unfortunately,  it  was  his  Judaism  that  he  demonstrated, 
rabbinical  and  traditional  Judaism,  in  which  he  had  been 
brought  up,  which  had  become  dear  to  his  recollections, 
but  which  was  now  fast  dying  away  and  which  he  thought 
he  must  defend  against  its  foes.     Poor  deluded  Saadia ! 


98  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

He  knew  not  that  the  most  dangerous  enemy  to  the  old 
system  had  fortified  himself  in  his  own  heart ;  he  knew 
not  that  he  fought  against  liimself,  that  the  imagined  an- 
tagonist was  nobody  else  but  he  himself;  that  his  head 
was  in  conflict  with  his  heart ;  he  did  not  see  that  he  con- 
ceded more  than  he  could  afford  to,  and  that  after  he  had 
been  victorious  in  such  a  pliilosophical  battle  with  himself 
he  could  have  exclaimed  with  Pyrrhus :  "  Another  such 
victory  and  I  shall  be  lost !  " 

I  shall  not  detain  you  with  a  long  biography  of  this 
remarkable  man  ;  I  shall  give  you  of  it  only  so  much  as 
shall  be  absolutely  necessary  for  the  understanding  of  the 
philosophical  system  which  he  has  built  up.  This  alone 
is  worth  knowing,  and  shall,  tlierefore,  form  the  main 
subject  of  my  lecture.  Saadia,  which  in  Arabic  is  Said, 
was  born  in  892,  in  a  small  place  in  upper  Egypt.  Of  his 
youth  little  is  known.  He  was  talented  and  must  have 
studied  under  able  teachers  all  those  branches  of  science 
which  at  that  time  made  up  the  education  of  a  scholarly 
young  man.  Both  the  Talmud  and  the  Avritings  of  the 
Karaites  must  have  been  known  to  him,  for  he  threw  in 
his  lot  with  the  Rabbin ites,  and  when  he  was  not  older 
than  twenty -three  years  he  began  to  assail  the  Karaites 
with  weapons  taken  from  their  own  armories.  Later  on 
he  translated  the  Bible  into  Arabic,  adding  to  it  his  own 
interpretations. .  This  work  was  intended  by  him  to  show^ 
that  reason  and  Talmudical  tradition  could  be  reconciled; 
that  the  nature  of  both  the  Talmud  and  the  Bible  was 
divine  and  that  they  stood  in  no  contradiction  to  reason. 
To  make  this  impossibility  possible  he  was  forced  to  tor- 
ture the  biblical  text  in  an  unpardonable  manner.  A 
number  of  other  literary  productions,  of  greater  or  minor 
merit,  gained  for  him  a  world-wide  renown,  and  as  it  just 


SAADIA    AND    HIS   TIME  99 

then  happened  that  the  presidential  chair  of  the  univer- 
sity of  Sura  was  without  an  incumbent  the  Prince  of  the 
Exile  extended  a  call  to  him  to  fill  the  place.  For  the 
first  and  last  time  in  the  annals  of  the  university  it  thus 
occurred  that  a  foreigner  was  chosen  for  that  position. 
In  tlie  month  of  May  of  the  year  928,  Saadia  was  inaugu- 
rated as  gaon  of  the  universit}^  of  Sura,  and  his  learning 
and  wisdom,  his  liberal  inclinations  and  his  personal  amia- 
bility, attracted  a  large  crowd  of  disciples  to  the  lecture- 
halls  of  the  university,  which  before  this  had  stood  vacant, 
so  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  end  was  still  far  distant,  and 
that  Rabbinical  Judaism  had  obtained  a  new  lease  of  life. 
Soon,  however,  clouds  began  to  gather  and  cover  the 
sky.  Saadia  had  frequently  occasion  to  observe  the  cor- 
ruption which  permeated  the  princely  government ;  he 
was  even  compelled  to  participate,  if  not  actively,  at 
least  passively,  in  the  misrule ;  but  when  finally  he  was 
shamelessly  asked  to  sanction  an  unjust  decision  of  the 
prince  in  a  lawsuit,  by  his  authority,  he  refused,  as  an 
honest  man,  to  do  so.  The  enraged  prince  suspended 
him  from  office,  appointed  another  and  more  pliable  gaon 
in  his  place,  and  hurled  an  edict  of  excommunication 
against  him.  Saadia,  in  liis  turn,  excommunicated  the 
prince,  and  appointed  his  (the  prince's)  brother  in  his 
stead.  Immediately  two  factions  formed,  and  both  ap- 
pealed to  the  caliph.  After  a  long  delay,  the  longest 
purse  won,  and  Saadia  was  removed  from  his  office  and 
driven  from  Sura.  For  four  years  he  lived  in  Bagdad  as 
a  private  citizen.  He  became  despondent,  and  his  health 
began  to  fail  him ;  still,  he  worked  unceasingly,  and  com- 
pleted many  literary  productions.  He  composed  the  first 
Jewish  prayer-book,  i.  e.,  a  ritual  into  which  he  ad- 
mitted all  such  prayers  as  had  come  into  use  during  the 


100  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

thousand  years  that  had  elapsed  since  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem.  Some  of  these  prayers  are  said  to  have 
been  in  use  during  the  time  of  the  second  common- 
wealth, but  the  only  certain  thing  that  can  be  ascertained 
about  them  is  that  they  were  in  use  at  the  time  of 
Saadia,  and  that  their  preservation  is  due  to  him.  A  pe- 
culiar book,  to  which  an  illustrious  origin  had  been  as- 
cribed, was  then  freely  circulating  among  the  Jews;  it 
was  the  Sefer  Jezira,  or  book  of  creation,  in  which  the 
most  anthropomorphic  descriptions  of  God  were  to  be 
found.  He  attacked  it  by  writing  a  commentary  upon 
it,  in  which  he  attempted  to  establish  a  conception  of 
God  which  was  less  coarse,  but  still  comprehensible  to 
the  masses.  He  claimed  that  all  things  were  of  a  porous 
nature,  that  fine  punctures,  which  were  filled  with  air  or 
a  kind  of  ether,  were  present  even  in  the  smallest' atoms  ; 
he  then  asserted  that  God  works  the  universe  by  working 
upon  this  ether,  and  that  he  is  thus  enabled  to  be  omni- 
present, omniscient,  and  omnipotent.  In  this  way,  he 
said,  had  all  miracles  been  performed,  and  all  the  proph- 
ets of  old  been  inspired,  so  that  the  biblical  narratives 
could  be  taken  literally,  without  picturing  God  in  the 
form  of  an  invisible  man.  The  most  renowned  of  all  his 
books,  however,  was  a  philosophical  treatise,  entitled 
"Emunot  weDeot,  Creed  and  Thoughts."  It  contained 
the  philosophical  framework  upon  which  he  spanned  out 
the  tissue  of  Judaism. 

The  most  trying  and  crucial  period  in  every  philosophi- 
cal system  is  the  starting-point.  If  the  premises  are  true, 
the  deductions  and  conclusions  will  surely  be  true ;  but 
the  weak  spot  with  all  philosophers  has  been  the  starting- 
point  ;  they  all  seem  to  have  felt  it,  and  they  generally 
pass  it  over  with  a  sleight  of  hand  ;  they  make  believe 


SAADIA   AND   HIS   TIME  101 

that  their  fouiulatiori  will  give  satisfaction,  and  then  they 
proceed  and  begin  to  build.     Saadia  started  with  the  as- 
sumption that  the   Bibl^  was  the  true  word   of  God,  be- 
cause the  Bible  said  so.     That  God  had  revealed  himself 
to  Israel  was,  to  him,  an  undeniable  fact,  because  it  was 
proven  by  the  mau}^  miracles  of  which  the  Bible  speaks, 
especially  by  the  miracle  of  the  manna.     Miracles  which 
were  only  of  a  short  duration  might  be  doubted,  but  a  mir- 
acle which  had  lasted  for  forty  years,  so  he  argued,  could 
not  have  been  a  deception.     "  True,"  says  he,  "  that  liu- 
manity  could  have  reached  the  same  religious  truth  by 
their  OAvn  efforts, -and  through  their  own  reason,  but  that 
would  have  lasted  too  long  a  time,  and  God  in  His  kind- 
ness had    sent,  therefore,  messengers   to  teach  men  the 
knowledge  of   God  in  one  lesson."     Having  established 
this  basis,  which  he  considered  impregnable,  he  began  to 
build  upon  it.     The  universe,  limited  by  time  and  space, 
could  not  have  produced  itself;  it   must  have  been  pro- 
duced by  a  creator,  but  though  it  is  difficult  to  think  of  a 
creation  out  of  nothing,  man  must  be  satisfied  with  this 
solution,  partly  because  the  Bible  speaks  of  it,  partly  be- 
cause  such   a  conclusion  is  forced  upon  him,  and  partly 
because  it  is  as  difficult  to  believe  or  imagine  a  creation 
out  of  something.     Neither  must  a  man  ask  for  wiiat  pur- 
pose the  world  was  created,  since  the  thoughts  of  God 
cannot  be  measured  like  the  thoughts  of  man,  1)}^  a  stand- 
ard of  utility,  i.  g.,  of  purpose.     It  is,  however,  at  the 
same  time,  very  likely  that  God  has  made  the  world  for 
the  purpose  of  manifesting  his  wisdom,  and  of  securing 
the  happiness  of  his  prospective  creatures.    The  Creator  of 
the  world  must  be  a  unity;  reason  and  common-sense  re- 
volt against  a  plurality  of  Gods.    Unfortunately,  however, 
human  thoughts  and  human  language  are  imperfect ;  they 


102  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

are  unable  to  grasp  God  in  one  conception,  or  to  press  this 
one  conception  into  one  word.  It  becomes,  therefore,  a 
necessity  to  divide  the  one  into  three  conceptions ;  to 
tliink  of  God  as  existing,  as  wise,  and  as  jjowerful,  which 
attributes,  liowever,  are  not  an  addition  to  the  essence  of 
God,  but  the  essence  itself.  Saadia  considered  the  earth 
the  centre  of  creation  and  its  most  important  part.  Sun 
and  stars  were  to  him  beings  moved  by  angels,  and  cre- 
ated for  the  purpose  of  illuminating  the  earth  day  and 
night.  The  earth  was  to  the  universe  what  the  kernel  is 
to  the  nut,  or  the  heart  to  man.  The  highest  being  on 
earth  was  man,  and,  by  force  of  his  conscience,  the  master 
of  creation.  He  was  composed  of  soul  and  body ;  the 
soul  had  three  distinct  qualities  —  desire,  sensitiveness, 
and  consciousness,  all  three  of  which  formed  one  unit. 
The  body  was  to  him  a  machine,  a  tool,  and  a  medium  by 
which  the  soul  placed  itself  in  relation  to  the  world  with- 
out. The  seat  of  the  soul  was  the  human  heart.  God 
had  chained  the  soul  to  the  body  to  make  them  both  able 
to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  existence  which  singly  they 
could  not  have  even  tasted.  The  Creator  had  fixed  a 
certain  term  for  their  union,  which  he  could  lengthen  and 
shorten  at  his  pleasure.  The  inbred  feeling  of  human  de- 
pendency upon  God  was  the  source  of  religion  ;  man  might 
have  possibly  risen  by  his  own  powers  to  the  knowledge 
of  God,  and  might  have  found  in  his  own  way  the  rules 
by  which  to  attain  perfection,  but  the  way  would  have 
been  too  long,  nor  could  he  have  found  the  right  measure 
for  his  actions;  his  passions  would  have  tossed  him  about 
between  the  extremes,  between  licentiousness  and  total 
abstinence  ;  a  law  divinely  revealed  could  alone  steady 
him.  Nor  could  he  have  found  out  by  himself  the  right 
measure  of  prayer.  He  would  have  prayed  either  too 
much  or  too  little. 


SAADIA   AND    HIS   TIME  103 

To  announce  and  to  pioclaiiu  his  will,  God  had  sent 
men,  and  not  angels,  that  the  people  should  not  he 
tempted  into  \vorslii[)[unu'  tlu'iii.  Their  mission,  how- 
ever, was  veritied  by  miracles  which  they  had  been  per' 
mitted  to  perform,  ai5  well  as  by  the  rationality  of  their 
teachings.  Saadia  would  not  believe  that  a  wonder  could 
jii'ove  the  wrong  to  be  right. 

You  will  note  here,  my  friends,  how  the  philosopher 
was  caught  here  in  his  own  meshes.  He  desires  to  prove 
the  existence  and  the  necessity  of  miracles,  although  his 
better  sense  revolts  against  them.  He  struggles  hard  to 
escape  the  dilemma  of  either  giving  up  the  divine  origin 
of  Bible  and  tradition,  or  to  admit  not  only  the  wonders 
enumerated  therein,  against  many  of  which  his  reason 
rises  in  opposition,  but  also  the  miracles  performed  by 
others,  for  instance,  by  Christian  saints.  If  God  had 
deemed  it  necessary  for  once  to  send  messengers  and  to 
furnish  them  with  the  power  to  work  miracles,  why  should 
he  not  have  made  use  of  the  same  expedient  a  second 
and  third  time?  —  a  theory  which  Saadia  would  admit 
under  no  consideration.  He  appeals,  therefore,  to  the 
intrinsic  truth  of  a  revelation,  forgetting  entirely  that 
when  truth  is  plainly  discernible,  miracles  are  superfluous 
and  a  mere  waste  of  divine  power.  But  now  let  us 
return  again  to  his  philosophy.  The  divine  origin  of  the 
laws  which  are  contained  both  in  Bible  and  tradition  were 
not  only  proven  beyond  doubt  by  miracles,  but  by  their 
intrinsic  truth,  and  the  true  Israelite  had  therefore  no 
choice  but  to  submit  to  them.  Tlie  truth  of  a  part  of 
these  laws  was  so  plainly  discernible  that  it  needed  no 
further  discussion.  To  worship  God,  not  to  blaspheme 
his  name  or  to  offend  him  by  the  adoration  of  idols,  was 
not  more  than  reasonable  ;  to  be  just,  true,  honest,  and 


104  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

chaste,  to  love  our  neighbors  and  to  be  merciful  even 
towards  our  enemies,  agreed  also  with  our  reason :  but 
there  was  another  part,  of  which  men  could  not  so  easily 
discern  the  underlying  truth ;  these  were  all  the  laws 
which  regulated  the  ritual.  Saadia  thought  that  their 
value  consists  in  giving  man  the  opportunity  of  showing 
his  obedience  to  God.  Some  of  these  laws  he  tried  to 
explain  rationally,  but  after  all  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  divine  wisdom  had  ordained  them  for  purposes 
which  the  human  mind  could  probably  not  sound.  Juda- 
ism, he  argues,  stands  and  falls  with  the  acceptation  or 
rejection  of  all  the  laws  in  their  entirety,  and  neither 
Christianity  nor  Islam  could  bring  sufficient  proof  or 
reason  that  or  why  they  should  be  annulled  or  abrogated. 

A  life  regulated  by  the  prescriptions  of  the  law  would 
purify  the  soul,  sinfulness  would  darken  its  splendor. 
Man  could  not  see  how  by  some  action  the  light  of  the 
soul  could  be  increased,  and  by  some  other  obscured,  but 
God  the  creator  had  that  knowledge,  and  the  right  to 
command  the  one  and  prohibit  the  other,  to  call  one 
action  a  virtue  and  another  a  sin.  Men  could  reach 
their  highest  perfection  and  remain  free  from  sin.  Saadia 
considered  it  a  vulgar  superstition  to  believe  that  no 
human  being  could  be  free  from  sin,  and  still  more  did 
he  reject  the  Christian  theory  of  inherited  sin. 

It  was  absolutely  necessary  that  God  should  be  just, 
that  he  should  reward  the  good  and  punish  the  wicked. 
If  retribution  did  not  follow  an  action  on  earth  it  was 
sure  to  follow  in  a  life  to  come.  Man  should,  therefore, 
never  despair  of  God's  justice  when  he  beheld  the  wicked 
to  flourish  and  the  pious  to  suffer.  Misery  sent  to  the 
virtuous  was  intended  merely  to  test  their  fortitude  and 
their  faith,  in  order  to    increase    their   reward.     Young 


SAADIA    AM)    HIS    TIME  105 

children  were  suffering  sometimes  greatly  before  they 
died  because  God  wished  tliein  to  become  entitled  to 
some  reward  in  the  next  life.  As  the  life  to  come  was  to 
balance  the  present,  death  could  not  end  all ;  it  was 
merely  a  transition  from  one  state  into  another.  After  the 
soul  had  parted  from  the  body,  it  felt  painfully  its  soli- 
tude, and  was  hovering  for  some  time  yet  around  the 
body ;  then  the  pure  soul  rose  to  the  place  of  happiness, 
while  souls  who  had  contaminated  themselves  with  sin 
were  compelled  to  roam  restlessly  about  until  the  day  of 
resurrection,  when  both  the  good  and  the  wicked  souls 
were  to  be  reunited  with  their  bodies.  At  that  time  the 
Messiah  would  appear,  but  his  reign  would  neither  be 
eternal  nor  entirely  without  sin.  This  time  was  near  at 
hand ;  according  to  Saadia's  figures,  it  was  to  occur  in  the 
year  964.  All  other  nations  should  participate  in  the  joys 
of  the  Messianic  government  in  proportion  to  the  treat- 
ment which  they  had  accorded  to  the  Jews  ;  but  the 
highest  and  last  degree  of  happiness  would  be  reached 
after  that,  when  the  virtuous  should  be  removed  forever  to 
heaven  and  the  wicked  should  suffer  eternal  punishment. 

Saadia  was  afterwards  recalled  to  the  presidenc}'"  of 
Sura,  and  reconciled  with  the  Prince  of  the  Exile  ;  he 
died,  however,  in  the  year  942.  About  the  same  time  the 
last  Prince  of  the  Exile  was  stoned  to  death  by  a  mob, 
and,  the  universities  having  declined,  the  office  of  gaon 
was  abolished. 

Saadia's  wisdom  has  become  proverbial ;  his  ideas  and 
philosophical  deductions,  of  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
give  you  a  sketch,  have  lived  for  a  long  time  after  him 
because  they  were  the  sum  total  of  the  religious  opinions 
which  at  his  time  were  current  among  the  Jews,  opinions 
which  greatly  varied  from  anything  ever  known  before  in 
Judaism. 


106  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

Whenever  the  life  and  activity  of  a  man  who  has  won 
fame  and  renown  in  the  past  are  treated  of,  the  speaker  is 
generally  expected  either  to  raise  him  to  the  skies  or  to 
drag  him  through  the  mud ;  either  to  make  a  saint  of  him, 
or  an  impostor  ;  either  to  extol  his  wisdom  or  to  ridicule 
his  folly.  The  listening  audience  naturally  wishes  to 
profit  by  the  discourse,  to  learn  what  it  should  do, 
whether  it  should  take  the  man  for  a  model  and  emulate 
his  deeds,  or  whether  it  should  learn  how  to  avoid  his 
errors.  These  two  ways  of  treating  of  the  great  men 
of  the  past  are,  however,  extremes,  and  as  such  they 
ought  not  to  be  tolerated,  but  rather  avoided.  Saadia  was 
a  wise,  a  great,  and,  what  is  far  more,  an  honest  and  con- 
scientious man.  He  had  labored  constantly  to  harmonize 
the  present  with  the  past.  He  was  neither  an  impostor 
nor  a  fool ;  still,  his  philosoph}^,  though  admired  by  his 
time,  must  appear  shallow  or  childish  to  us.  We  must 
take  his  arguments  for  not  more  nor  less  than  what  they 
are  worth.  His  knowledge  of  the  universe  was  limited, 
and,  starting  from  false  premises,  his  conclusions  could  not 
be  right.  His  philosophy  was  the .  philosophy  of  the  in- 
telligent classes  of  his  time.  We  behold  him  struggling 
with  his  own  skepticism,  we  see  him  endeavoring  to  fight 
down  the  doubts  which  rose  in  his  soul ;  he  is  desirous  of 
giving  satisfaction  to  his  reason,  while  he  is  afraid  to  de- 
stroy the  religious  routine  of  the  day  ;  he  is,  therefore,  en- 
titled to  our  sincerest  sympathy.  Our  age  resembles  his 
in  many  aspects.  We  are  still  employed  in  the  same  work 
in  which  he  has  frittered  away  his  life.  We  are  still 
about  to  find  the  point  where  reason' and  inlierited  creed 
could  join  and  stick  together.  We  may  have  a  more 
developed  knowledge  concerning  the  universe,  its  ma- 
terial and  its  forces  ;  our  reason  may  move  in  different 


SAADIA   AND    HIS   TIME  107 

tracks  and  encompass  wider  fields,  many  fallacies  may- 
have  been  removed  to-day,  and  many  superstitions  extir- 
pated which  were  in  full  bloom  in  Saadia's  time,  but  our 
work  has  remained  exactly  the  same  ;  we  liave  still  to 
show  why  we  are  still  conscientiously  adhering  to  Juda- 
ism. We  have  still  to  define  what  Judaism  is  to  us  ;  we 
have  still  to  answer  the  same  old  questions  in  regard  to 
the  origin  and  the  end,  in  regard  to  the  Creator  and  the 
creation,  in  regard  to  this  life  and  the  life  to  come,  in  re- 
gard to  the  rewards  which  we  may  expect  and  the  punish- 
ment which  we  should  dread  ;  we  have  still  to  prove  that 
the  government  of  the  universe  is  a  wise  one  in  the  face 
of  all  the  misery  which  surrounds  us,  or  that  it  is  a  just 
one  in  the  face  of  prevailing  injustice.  The  intelligent 
and  conscientious  among  us  who  thus  endeavor  to  find  a 
plausible  answer  for  all  these  questions,  and  who  feel 
themselves  embarrassed  on  all  sides  ;  who  now  yield  to 
the  promptings  of  their  reason,  and  the  next  moment  al- 
low themselves  to  be  carried  away  by  their  emotions,  will 
they  not  sympathize  with  Saadia,  their  brother  and  co- 
laborer,  and  behold  in  his  philosopliy  the  same  earnest  and 
honest  endeavor  to  find  the  key  to  the  riddle  of  the 
sphinx,  for  which  they  themselves  are  yet  in  search? 

After  Saadia's  death  and  the  extinction  of  the  Baby- 
lonian universities,  Europe  begins  to  play  a  prominent 
part  in  Jewish  history ;  and  Spain,  on  account  of  its  rela- 
tionship with  Islam,  becomes  for  a  while  the  seat  of  Jew- 
ish learning. 

I  shall  skip  again  two  centuries,  and  in  my  next  lecture 
I  shall  present  to  you  a  Jewish  poet  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, a  man  who  is  worthy  to  be  placed  by  the  side  of  any 
of  our  modern  bards. 


IX. 

ABULHASSAN  JEHUDA   HALEVI   AND   HIS   TIME 

The  manifold  phases  and  changes  through  which  Juda- 
ism has  passed  since  its  conception,  and  which  I  have  en- 
deavored to  trace  in  the  previous  lectures  of  this  series, 
have  generally  become  flesh  and  blood  either  in  some 
stern  law-giver  or  some  profound  philosopher.  Moses, 
Ezra,  and  Simon  of  Maccabean  fame  represented  the  first 
order.  Jochanan  Ben  Saccai,  Anan  Ben  David,  and  Saadia 
were  representatives  of  the  second  class.  We  shall  now 
meet  for  the  first  time  with  a  poet,  who,  as  the  exponent 
of  his  time,  marks  a  most  notable  period  in  the  historic 
development  of  Judaism. 

I  do  not  wish  to  say  that  poetry  was  alien  to  Judaism, 
or  that  there  had  never  before  been  bards  in  Israel  who 
have  presented  to  us  the  gems  of  their  thoughts  in  the 
golden  vessel  of  poetry;  indeed  the  Hebrew  literature 
contains  sufficient  and  ample  proof  that  the  lyric  spirit 
has  asserted  itself  vigorously  at  all  times  in  the  Jewish 
nation,  and  that  Miriam's  timbrels  and  David's  harp  were 
not  forgotten  relics  of  by-gone  times ;  but  though  poets 
were  never  lacking  in  Israel,  none  of  them  have  as  well 
expressed  the  sentiment  of  the  people  current  at  his 
time,  or  given  evidence  of  the  new  acquisitions  which 
Judaism  had  made,  than  has  Jehuda  Halevi,  a  Jewish  bard 
of  the  twelfth  century.     His  poeuis  are  masterpieces  of  art 

108 


ABULHASSAX   .TEHrPA    TTALEVI    AXD    HIS   TIME       10!> 

and  diction  ;  they  breathe  a  spirit  of  devotion  and  love  to 
God,  to  religion,  and  to  humanity,  which  cannot  be  sur- 
passed, though  his  paradise  is  situated  rather  in  the  past 
i!ian  in  the  future,  though  he  is  retrospective  rather  than 
prosijective.  He  loves,  and  loves  unsuccessfully,  but  tlie 
object  of  his  love  is  not  a  fading  beaut}'.  It  is  no  flirting- 
damsel  whose  fair  face  has  enchanted  him;  liis  lad}'  love 
is  an  aged  widow,  it  is  Jerusalem.  His  muse  is  devoted 
to  her  alone  ;  he  sings  only  her  praise,  he  sees  not  the 
wrinkles  in  her  face,  but  his  imagination  pictures  her  as 
still  standing  in  the  bloom  of  youth.  Not  unlike  the 
knights-errant  of  his  age,  he  offers  his  services  to  his  lady 
love  unselfishly,  without  hope  even  of  reward. 

I  cannot  refrain  from  inserting  here  a  few  lines  of  the 
praise  which  Heinrich  Heine  has  devotedly  offered  to  the 
memory  of  the  great  bard  of  the  twelfth  century.  With 
true  poetic  instinct,  the  poet  of  the  nineteentli  century 
recognizes  and  appreciates  the  merit  of  his  forerunner,  and 
enthusiastically  he  exclaims  :  — 

*'  Ja,  er  war  ein  grosser  Dicliter, 

Stern  und  Fackel  seiner  Zeit, 
Seines  Volkes  Llcht  und  Leuchte. 

Eine  wiinderbare  grosse 
Feuersaeule  des  Gesanges, 

Die  der  Schnierzens-karavane 
Israels  vorangezogen 

In  der  Wueste  des  Exils. 

"  Kein  und  wahrhaft,  sender  Makel,  - 

War  sein  Lied  wie  seine  Seele. 
Als  der  Sclioepfer  sie  erschaffen, 

Diese  Seele,  selbstzufrieden, 
Kuesste  er  die  scboene  Seele, 

Und  des  Kiisses  holder  Nachklang 
Bebt  in  jedem  Lied  des  Dicbters 

Das  geweibt  durcli  diese  (inade." 


110  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

Or  in  the  English  version  which  I  have  attempted  :  — 

Was  indeed  a  genial  poet, 

Star  and  flambeau  of  his  nation, 
Light  and  lantern  of  his  people. 

Pillar  of  fire,  bright  and  mighty 
Was  his  song,  inspiring,  shining; 

Marching  at  the  head  of  Israel's 
Caravan  while  it  was  moving 

Through  the  desert  of  the  exile. 

True  and  pure,  without  a  blemish, 

Like  his  soul  were  all  his  poems. 
A  sweet  kiss  had  the  Creator 

Pressed  upon  his  soul  when  sending 
It  from  heaven  down  to  this  world. 

And  the  echo  of  this  parting 
Eass  still  vibrates  in  his  poems 

Sanctified  through  Heaven's  grace. 

Of  his  numerous  worlvs  I  shall  select  only  two  for  our 
examination,  because  they  are  the  negatives  upon  which 
his  time  has  left  its  imprint.  The  first  contains  the  songs 
in  which  he  has  celebrated  his  lady  love,  Zion,  and  in 
which  his  yearning  and  longing  for  the  sacred  city  burst 
forth  like  a  powerful  stream  of  light.  They  are  written 
in  a  faultless  Hebrew,  so  classical  that  the  psalmists  of 
old  might  not  have  been  ashamed  to  acknowledge  their 
authorship.  The  second  is  a  philosophy  of  the  Jewish 
religion,  and,  being  by  nature  a  poet,  and  not  a  dr-y 
philosopher,  he  establishes  it  in  a  kind  of  dialogue.  This 
work  was  originally  written  in  Arabic,  and  after  many 
years  was  translated  by  one  of  his  admirers  into  He- 
brew. Its  title  is  "  Cliozari,"  or,  as  it  was  rendered  after- 
wards, Kuzari.  The  ruler  of  a  nomadic  Asiatic  tribe,  a 
pagan  by  birtli,  is  dissatisfied  with  the  idolatrous  practices 
of  his  nation  ;  he  invites,  therefore,  a  philosopher,  a  Chris- 


ABULHASSAN   JEHUDA    HALEVT   AND   HIS   TLME       1  1 1 

tian,  a  Mohammedan,  and  finally  a  Jew,  to  his  court  for 
the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  truth  of  their  respective 
religions,  and  of  then  selecting  that  which  would  strike 
him  most  favorably.  As  could  be  foreseen,  they  all,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Jew,  failed  to  convince  him,  and  he 
and  his  people  embraced  Judaism. 

In  his  Zion's  songs  we  meet  not  only  with  an  idealiza- 
tion of  former  times  and  conditions,  in  which  a  poet  might 
have  the  right  to  indulge,  but  wath  a  yearning  for  a  resti- 
tution of  the  past,  and,  above  all,  with  the  burning  desire 
of  visiting  and  seeing,  at  least,  the  Holy  Land.  This  is  an 
entirely  new  feature  in  Judaism.  During  the  time  of  the 
Temple  it  had  been  the  religious  duty  of  every  Israelite 
to  visit  Jerusalem  three  times  a  year,  and  those  who  in 
later  years  had  settled  in  Persia,  Egypt,  Italy,  and  Greece 
had  thought  it  incumbent  upon  them  to  visit  the  Temple 
at  least  once  in  their  life,  but  after  the  destruction  of  the 
Temple,  though  for  national  and  religious  purposes  its 
restoration  had  appeared  desirable,  we  never  find  the 
desire  of  seeing  and  visiting  the  sacred  spots  so  urgently 
and  plaintively  voiced  as  in  the  poems  of  Jehuda  Halevi. 
The  eyes  of  the  Israelites  had  been  directed  for  many 
centuries  rather  towards  the  universities  of  Sura  and 
Pumbedita  than  towards  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem. 

How  can  we  account  for  this  yearning  that  so  suddenly 
seems  to  have  sprung  up  ?  What  caused  it  ?  Wliat 
gave  it  such  an  intensity  and  made  it  so  popular  that 
it  not  only  strung  the  harp  of  the  minstrel,  but  secured 
for  him  an  attentive,  an  enthusiastic,  and  an  appre- 
ciative audience?  We  need  not  look  very  far  for  that 
cause,  we  can  find  it  by  turning  over  a  few  pages  of  his- 
tory. Let  us  see.  After  Christianity  had  passed  through 
the  struggles  of  the  first  three  centuries,  after  it  had  de- 


112  DISSOLVING  VIEWS 

feated  the  opposition  raised  against  it  b}^  Greek  philosophy 
and  had  ascended  with  Constantine  the  throne  of  the 
Roman  empire,  it  was  comparatively  an  easy  task  for  it 
to  subdue  the  barbarous  nations  beyond  the  borders  of  its 
realm.  During  the  great  emigration  of  tribes  which, 
coming  from  the  north,  infused  new  blood  into  the  de- 
caying southern  nations,  the  foreign  barbarians  were 
easily  converted  to  the  new  religion,  that  is,  persuaded 
into  the  performance  of  some  ceremonies  and  to  belief 
in  some  stories  which  were  given  to  the  unsophisticated 
neophyte  as  the  quintessence  of  divine  truth.  It  had 
taken  several  centuries  before  the  northern  hordes  were 
somewhat  tamed,  and  the  first  coat  of  civilization  spread 
over  them.  After  they  had  learned  how  to  read,  they 
naturally  turned  to  the  one  book  to  which  the  priests 
constantly  referred,  the  Bible.  They  read  and  read  and 
read  again.  All  the  events  which  that  venerable  book 
related  had  taken  place  within  a  small  geographical  circle, 
in  Palestine,  and  especially  in  its  capital,  Jerusalem. 
It  was  near  Jerusalem  where  their  god  had  been  reared, 
where  he  had  lived  and  performed  all  the  wonderful  feats 
of  which  the  holy  book  spoke.  There  he  had  been 
crucified  and  buried.  At  the  time  when  the  northern 
nations  of  Germany,  France,  and  England  had  risen  to 
this  knowledge,  the  Holy  Land  had  long  ceased  to  be  a 
part  of  the  Roman  empire  or  the  property  of  the  Roman 
church ;  it  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Turks  ;  the 
crescent  had  replaced  the  cross,  and  Caliph  Omar  had 
erected  a  mosque  where  the  church  of  the  holy  sepulchre 
had  been  standing.  Now,  it  is  an  experience  which  can 
be  verified  every  day,  that  whenever  a  book  greatly  in- 
terests us  we  become  eager  to  see  the  places  of  which  it 
speaks.     There  is  not  a  boy  who,  after  having  read  Robin- 


ABULHASSAN   JEHUDA   HALEVI    AND    HIS   TIME       113 

son  Crusoe,  does  not  wish  to  visit  and  see  the  desohite 
island  whicli  he  inhabited  for  so  many  years.  And  has 
not  Verona  been  visited  by  many  admirers  of  Shakes- 
peare, for  the  sake  of  finding  the  alleged  tomb  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet  ?  A  desire  s})rang  up  all  at  once  and  all  over 
Christendom  to  visit  and  to  behold  the  sacred  places  of 
which  the  holy  book  was  telling  them.  This  desire  grew 
finally  into  a  mania  which,  like  an  epidemic,  swept  all 
over  Europe,  and  the  force  of  which  was  not  expended  for 
several  centuries.  The  devout  Christian  warriors  began 
to  ask  themselves  why  the  land  of  God  should  not  be  in 
their  possession,  why  it  should  remain  in  the  hands  of  the 
infidels?  Would  not  God  help  them  to  conquer  the  Holy 
Land,  as  he  had  helped  once  before  the  valiant  sons  of 
Israel  ?  Would  he  not  supply  his  faithful  children  with 
food  and  water  on  their  march  to  the  Promised  Land,  as 
he  had  done  before,  when  Moses  had  led  the  children  of 
Jacob  out  of  Egypt?  Toward  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
century  the  storm  broke  loose.  Irregular  and  regular 
armies  began  to  move  toward  the  Holy  Land.  Swarm 
after  swarm  followed,  and  a  fierce  war  arose  between 
Christian  and  Mussulman  for  the  possession  of  the  spot 
sacred  to  both  of  them.  The  Crusades  have  left  a  blood- 
stained trail  upon  the  pages  of  the  world's  history,  and 
there  is  no  need  of  my  repeating  what  we  all  know  or 
may  find  in  any  encyclopaedia.  Jerusalem  was  captured 
by  the  Christians  after  a  long  siege  and  great  sacrifice  of 
human  life,  to  be  recaptured  again  by  the  ^Moslems.  In 
a  word,  the  politics  of  the  world  turned  around  the  one 
point  —  Jerusalem.  The  whole  world  conversed  but  of 
one  city,  and  that  city  was  Jerusalem. 

At  this  time  Jehuda  Halevi  lived.     The  infection  had 
taken   hold   of  the   .Jews,  as  well  as  of  their    luMglibors. 


114  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

Their  eyes,  too,  were  now  turned  toward  Jerusalem. 
Who  knew  more  about  that  city  than  they  did?  Who 
was  more  entitled  to  the  possession  of  that  city  than  they 
were  ?  Now  that  the  whole  world  manifested  such  an  in- 
terest in  Jerusalem  and  the  Holy  Land,  the}^  began  to 
realize  their  unfortunate  condition,  and  their  wish  fath- 
ered the  hope  that  God  might  return  their  patrimony 
to  them.  People  who  did  not  travel  at  all,  or  little,  are 
apt  to  idealize  all  foreign  places,  and  to  ascribe  to  them 
greater  scenic  beauties  than  to  those  to  which  they  have 
become  accustomed.  Jerusalem  appeared  before  the 
Jewish  vision  surrounded  with  a  halo  of  glory ;  to  see 
the  places  where  the  glory  of  God  had  dwelt,  where  the 
Temple  had  stood,  where  the  patriarchs  had  walked, 
where  the  prophets  had  spoken,  where  the  miracles  had 
been  performed,  became  a  longing  which  could  be  grati- 
fied by  nothing  less  than  realization.  Jehuda  Halevi's 
lyre  was  tuned  to  that  key.  What  the  prosaic  Jewish 
masses  uttered  as  a  mere  wish  burst  forth  from  the 
mouth  of  the  poet  as  a  lamentation,  as  a  melodious  wail- 
ing, as  a  mournful  complaint ;  and  it  found  a  response 
in  every  Jewish  heart,  because,  being  tuned  alike,  the  vi- 
bration was  the  same. 

Jehuda  Halevi's  "  Chozari,"  or  Kuzari,  is  not  so  much 
of  value  to  us  on  account  of  the  refutation  of  all  other  re- 
ligions as  on  account  of  one  point  which  I  shall  mention 
hereafter.  It  is  as  plain  as  daylight  that  in  a  book  in 
which  philosophy,  Christianity,  Islam,  and  Judaism  are 
put  on  the  stand  to  testify  to  their  inherent  truth,  a  Jew-, 
ish  author  will  describe  other  religions  in  such  manner 
that  their  errors  will  become  visible  at  once,  while  he  will 
defend  his  own  religion  in  such  style  that  all  attacks 
upon  it  will  be  met  instantly  and  successfully.     All  such 


ABULHASRAN   JEHUDA   HALEY  I   AND   HIS   TIME       115 

religious  discussions  are  of  little  value,  because  the  author 
naturally  sees  things  through  his  own  peculiar  glasses, 
and  ^sop's  fable  of  The  Lion  and  the  Man  finds  an 
adaptation  in  every  one  of  such  cases.  A  lion,  says 
^Esop,  once  met  a  man  at  the  gate  of  a  cit}-,  over 
which  a  sculptor  had  chiselled  the  scene  representing 
Hercules  slaying  the  Nemean  lion.  The  man,  pointing 
to  the  picture^  said,  "  Behold  the  superiority  of  man  over 
you !  "  "  Pray,  tell  me,"  replied  the  lion,  "  who  has  made 
this  engraving  ?  "  "  It  is  the  masterpiece  of  one  of  our 
greatest  artists,"  was  the  answer.  "  So  it  must  be,  in- 
deed ! "  said  the  lion,  "  for  if  a  lion  had  made  it,  the  scene 
would  have  been  the  reverse  of  this  one.  The  lion  would 
have  killed  the  man." 

Neither  would  it  be  profitable  to  rehearse  the  argu- 
ments of  the  different  religions  as  they  appear  to  Jehuda 
Halevi,  because  comparative  theology,  which  in  our  days 
has  attained  so  wonderful  a  development,  and  has  yielded 
such  marvellous  results,  has  proven  —  if  it  has  proven 
anything  —  that  no  religion  can  boast  of  being  the  exclu- 
sive possessor  of  all  the  truth;  that  all  religions,  ours 
included,  have  their  weak  as  well  as  their  strong  points ; 
and  that  they  all  are  honest  and  conscientious  attempts  on 
the  part  of  humanity  to  rise  to  the  sublime  and  to  reach 
the  highest  possible  perfection.  It  is,  therefore,  not  his 
<lefence  and  glorification  of  Judaism,  which  he  attempted 
and  successfully  finished  (from  his  point  of  view),  which 
makes  his  Chozari  a  remarkable  book,  and  which  aston- 
ishes us ;  it  is  rather  the  new  dogma  upon  which  he  feels 
himself  constrained  to  erect  his  philosoph3^  Strange  to 
say,  he  holds  that  in  matters  of  religion  reason  has  noth- 
ing to  say,  but  that  we  must  implicitly  rest  our  cause 
upon  faith  and  belief.     Let  us  hear  his  deductions.     Ac- 


116  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

cepting  the  biblical  luarrative  of  creation  as  undeniably 
true,  he  claims  that  Adam  had  been  created  perfect  by 
God ;  that  he  was  the  ideal  man,  and  that  every  knowl- 
edge which  man  now  gains  with  difficulty  was  obtained 
b}^  him  with  ease.  Since  then  humanity  has  kept  on  con- 
stantly degenerating,  especially  in  all  those  elements 
which  had  to  be  separated  and  were  switched  off  from 
the  original  stock.  Abraham,  a  lineal,  descendant  of 
Adam,  had  inherited  a  part  of  his  prophetic  spirit  and 
transmitted  it  to  his  descendants.  God  liad,  therefore, 
selected  Israel  as  his  own  people,  and  vouchsafed  unto 
them  the  knowledge  of  his  laws,  which,  by  means  of  their 
prophetic  abilities,  they  alone  could  grasp  and  compre- 
hend. By  force  of  their  ideal  nature,  as  well  as  by  the 
blessings  which  the  law  had  brought  upon  them,  Israel 
stood  far  above  the  rest  of  the  nations,  and  formed 
the  true  aristocracy  of  the  human  race.  All  those  laws 
which  were  apparently  unwise,  untimely,  or  unessential 
were  nevertheless  of  the  highest  value,  because  these  very 
laws  were  the  means  by  which  the  ideal  prophetic  nature 
in  Israel  is  preserved  and  lifted  to  the  summit  of  glory. 
The  main  point  in  Israel's  religion  was,  therefore,  not  so 
much  the  performance  of  its  ethical  prescriptions,  but 
rather  the  performance  of  all  those  ritual  laws  which 
appear  the  least  reasonable.  Since  the  ceremonial  laws 
were  the  main  props  of  Judaism,  their  interpretation 
could  not  be  left  to  the  whims  of  individual  Bible  read- 
ers, but  must  move  along  firmly  established  roads.  Kara- 
ism  had,  therefore,  no  justification,  and  the  prescriptions 
of  the  Talmud  had  to  be  carried  out  to  the  very  letter. 

Christians  and  Mohammedans  were  entirely  excluded 
from  the  prophetic  mission  of  Judaism.  They  might  par- 
ticipate as  proselytes  in  some  secular  blessings ;  but,  no 


ABULHASSAN   JEHUDA   HALEVI   AND   HIS   TIME       117 

matter  how  pious  a  life  they  were  leading,  their  very 
nature  would  not  admit  of  the  attainment  of  the  higher 
prophetic  qualities  which  belonged  to  the  most  ignorant 
of  Jews  by  inheritance. 

These  deductions  are  entirely  new  and  strange  to  the 
true  spirit  of  Judaism ;  they  show  that  they  must  have 
crept  into  it  unobservedly.  The  elevation  of  faith,  of 
blind  belief,  was  essentially  un-Jewish,  and  the  exclusive- 
ness,  carried  b}^  Jehuda  Halevi  to  the  extreme,  could  not 
but  make  the  Jew  a  stranger  in  this  world,  and  cripple 
the  very  mission  for  which  Israel  seemed  to  have  been  ap- 
pointed. We  wonder  frequently  at  the  bigotism  of  men 
who  have  received  a  liberal  education,  and  who  show  the 
soundest  common-sense  in  all  other  respects ;  and  thus  we 
cannot  but  look  with  astonishment  upon  Halevi.  How 
was  it  possible  that  a  man  of  Ins  qualities  and  abilities,  a 
genial  poet  by  the  grace  of  God,  a  physician  by  profes- 
sion, could  thus  betray  his  reasoning  powers  and  sell 
them  into  captivit}^  to  their  worst  enemy  —  belief?  Or, 
how  could  a  man  who  must  have  come  in  frequent  con- 
tact with  both  Christians  and  Mohammedans,  wlio  must 
have  frequently  been  admitted  to  their  confidence,  and 
must  have  received  from  them  tokens  of  trust  and  grat- 
itude,—  how  could  he  exclude  them,  one  and  all,  from 
a  participation  in  the  mission  of  humanity,  and,  in  aris- 
tocratic exclusiveness,  close  the  doors  of  his  heart  against 
them?  We  need  not  look  far  to  find  the  solution -of 
this  riddle.  As  an  echo  will  repeat  what  has  been 
spoken,  be  it  good  or  bad ;  as  a  mirror  will  reflect 
what  is  held  before  its  surface,  be  it  comely  or  homely, 
thus  has  the  Jew  always  acted  as  a  reflector,  and  faith- 
fully returned  what  the  surrounding  world  held  up  before 
him. 


118  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

Jeliucla  Halevi  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in  the 
northern  and  Christian  part  of  Spain.  Christianity  had 
endeavored  with  all  its  might  to  stamp  out  the  traces  of 
Greek  rationalism  and  to  fill  up  the  gap  with  the  doctrine 
of  belief.  Reason,  however,  cannot  be  suppressed.  The 
spirit  of  inquiry  began  to  assert  its  right  and  made  itself 
felt,  much  to  the  discomfort  of  the  investigator.  The 
eternal  questions  of  beginning  and  end,  of  reward  and 
punishment,  of  sin  and  atonement,  are  much  more  easily ' 
solved  by  an  appeal  to  belief  than  by  an  appeal  to  reason. 
It  was,  therefore,  quite  natural  that  the  skeptic  sliould  be 
shown  the  ineffectiveness  of  his  researches,  and  be  admon- 
ished not  to  listen  to  the  tempting  voice  of  doubt,  but 
rather  to  seek  safety  in  the  motherly  arms  of  faith.  Ex- 
actly because  Jehuda  Halevi  was  a  man  of  the  most  brill- 
iant genius,  exactly  because  his  medical  studies  had 
brought  him  nearer  to  nature  and  had  made  him  skepti- 
cal, he  turned  to  blind  belief  and  became  its  champion. 
He  would  have  failed,  otherwise,  to  reconcile  the  present 
with  the  past,  the  ceremonial  law  of  the  Bible  would  have 
fallen  to  pieces,  the  Talmud  would  have  become  meaning- 
less, Karaism  would  have  been  justified,  and  every  weapon 
wherewith  to  defend  the  religion  which  he  had  inherited 
by  the  accident  of  birth  would  have  broken  in  his  hands. 
The  platform  of  blind  belief  was,  therefore,  the  only 
acceptable  retreat  for  him,  and,  as  both  Christians  and 
Mohammedans  took  it  for  the  basis  of  their  campaign,  he 
followed  their  example,  and  from  that  time  we  not 
unfrequently  meet  in  Judaism  with  endeavors  to  estab- 
lish articles  of  creed,  or  with  proclamations  containing 
what  the  Jew  must  believe  and  what  not. 

His  sectarian  spirit,  too,  was  merely  the  reflex  of  his 
time.     The  Jew,  having  been  ostracized  by  Christians  and 


ABULh?A8SAN  .iEHUDA    HALEVI   AND   HIS   TIME        119 

Mohammedans,  retaliated  by  excluding  them,  in  his  turn, 
from  blessings  which  he  expected.  Appealed  to  from  all 
sides  to  exchange  his  religion  for  either  Christianity  or 
Mohammedanism,  in  both  of  which  he  saw  merely  a  new 
form  of  idolatry,  he  defended  himself  by  drawing  the 
party  lines  much  closer  around  his  small  band.  As  he  did 
not  wish  to  be  absorbed  by  them,  so  he  did  not  desire  to 
absorb  them,  for  fear  that  the  result  in  either  case  might 
be  the  same.  He  fastened,  therefore,  his  religion  so 
closely  to  his  race  that  the  one  could  not  exist  without 
the  other,  and  Halevi  expressed  no  more  than  the  current 
belief  of  his  time,  —  that  the  Jew  must  be  born  to  his 
religion,  that  his  blood  contains  religious  qualities  which 
neither  by  conversion  nor  by  the  most  scrupulous  perfor- 
mance of  Jewish  laws  could  be  obtained  by  an  outsider. 
From  that  moment,  Judaism  ceased  to  be  a  proselytiiig 
religion,  and  the  reluctance  to  accept  converts  or  to 
receive  them  with  a  hearty  welcome,  which  is  still  met 
in  our  day,  can  be  traced  back  to  that  time. 

The  biography  of  Jehuda  Halevi  can  be  given  in  a  few 
words.  He  was  born  in  northern  Spain,  about  the  year 
1086.  His  poetic  genius  manifested  itself  when  he  was 
still  a  boy,  and  he  became  renowned  in  the  circles  of  his 
family  for  poems  which  he  composed  in  celebration  of 
family  events,  such  as  weddings  or  funerals.  He  was 
educated  in  southern  Spain  for  the  medical  profession ; 
and  after  he  had  finally  settled  down  in  Toledo,  he  seems 
to  have  gained  not  only  the  confidence  of  well-paying 
patients,  but  great  renown  among  professionals.  Still,  he 
was  dissatisfied  with  his  station  in  life,  partly  because  his 
poetic  inclinations  would  have  preferred  a  life  of  ease  and 
study;  partly  because  he  did  not  believe  in  the  efficiency 
of  his  profession.     Medical  science,  though  it  had  risen 


120  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

to  a  high  standard  in  Mohammedan  Spain,  was  still  in  its 
infancy.      He  found  that  he  knew  but  little  about  the 
causes  of  diseases,  and  felt  grieved  tliat  he  did  not  know 
more,  that   the    diagnosis  was  guesswork,  and   that   his 
medicines  would  help  in  one  case  and  be  ineffective  in  a 
hundred  others,  without  any  apparent  ground  for  either 
phenomenon.     He  remained,  however,  a  physician  all  his 
life,  and  grew  rich  as  such.     He  even  found  leisure  to 
mount  Pegasus  and  to  establish  for  himself  the  renown  of 
a  poet,  which  he  deserved  in  so  high   a  degree.     The 
mania   for   visiting   Palestine    and    Jerusalem,   which    at 
that  time  infected  all  Europe,  did  not  leave  him,  as  we 
have  seen,  untouched,  but  the  trip  could  not  so  easily  be 
made  at  that  time  as  to-day.     It  was  almost  at   the  close 
of  his  life  before  he  became  able  to  realize  the  great  desire 
of  his  existence.     In  the  year  1140,  he  settled  his  affairs, 
left  his  many  disciples  and  his  only  daughter  and  grand- 
child, took  with  him  a  good  financial  supply,  and  entered 
upon    the    dangerous   expedition.      His   journey  through 
Spain  was  a  triumphal  procession,  and  his  fame  preceded 
him  even  to  Egypt.     He  stayed  for  some  time  in  Alexan- 
dria and   Cairo,  enjoying  the  hospitality  of  the  elite  of 
society  in  both  cities.     In  1141,  he  arrived  in  Palestine, 
and  reached  the  place  of  his  longings  —  Jerusalem.     Je- 
rusalem was  at  that  time  in  the  hands  of  the  Christians, 
and  it  seems  that  he  did  not  enjoy  much  hospitality  from 
them.    Interpreters  think  that  they  find  traces  of  experi- 
enced intolerance  in  some  of  his  Zion  songs.     It  is,  how- 
ever, not  sure  that  these  were  composed  in  Jerusalem,  or 
that  any  of  them  were    composed  after   his    sojourn   in 
the  Holy  City  ;  quite  to  the  contrary,  they  seemed  to 
have  been  written  in  the  middle  of  his  life,  before  he  had 
ever  set  his  foot  upon  sacred  soil.     The  reason  that  the 


ABULHASSAN   JEHUDA   HALEVl    AND    HIS    TIMK        121 

latter  supposition  is  the  most  probable  is  that  suddenly 
sight  of  him  is  entirely  lost.  We  hear  absolutely  nothing 
of  his  return,  or  of  new  poems  which  he  composed,  and 
not  even  where  or  when  he  died.  A  legend  tells  that, 
while  sitting  on  the  ruins  of  the  temple  and  mourning 
over  the  sad  sight  which  Jerusalem  offered,  he  was  mur- 
dered by  a  Mohammedan  knight,  and  that  he  died,  so  to 
say,  at  the  feet  of  the  Dulcinea  whose  beauty  and  virtue 
lie  had  sung  all  his  life  long.  This  abrupt  but  romantic 
close  of  the  life  of  the  great  poet  has  given  more  satisfac- 
tion, and  has,  therefore,  found  a  more  favorable  reception, 
than  the  more  prosaic  narrative  that  the  sight  of  Palestine 
and  Jerusalem  entirely  sobered  him  ;  that  he  found  him- 
self disappointed,  that  neither  the  scenery  nor  the  appoint- 
ments of  the  holy  places  were  such  as  he  had  imagined, 
and  that  reality  loosened  the  strings  of  the  harp  which 
imagination  screwed  up  to  so  high  a  pitch.  It  is  a  fact 
that  after  his  arrival  in  Palestine  all  traces  of  him  are 
lost.  His  poetic  productions,  however,  have  lived  for 
many  centuries,  and  cheered  and  consoled  the  Jews  dur- 
ing the  Dark  Ages  which  were  now  fast  approaching. 
There  is  a  time  in  the  life  of  the  silk-worm  when  he 
weaves  around  himself  a  casket  in  which  his  sleep  and 
metamorphosis  are  well  protected  against  the  inclemency  of 
the  weather.  Jehuda  Halevi  is  one  of  the  men  who  have 
helped  to  weave  the  shroud  in  which  Judaism  was  destined 
to  sleep  for  a  few  hundred  years,  to  be  resuscitated  into 
new  life  in  a  form  far  different  fi-om  any  of  those  through 
which  it  has  passed  before. 


X. 


MOSES   JMAIMONIDES 


A  FEW  weeks  ago,  on  November  20,  Prof.  Felix  Adler 
addressed  a  convention  of  the  Societies  for  Ethical  Culture, 
in  Chicago,  on  "  The  Aim  of  the  Ethical  Movement."  In 
his  address  he  conceded  that  all  religions  had  for  their 
aim  the  moral  development  of  humanity  ;  he  claimed  that 
the  ethical  movement  differed  from  them  merel}^  in  the 
way  which  it  takes  towards  this  goal,  and  that  it  ad- 
dressed itself  directly  to  the  conscience  of  man,  expecting 
an  immediate  answer,  while  the  other  religions  appealed 
to  it  in  an  indirect  and  roundabout  way.  The  other 
religions,  the  speaker  said,  insist  upon  the  acceptance  of 
some  preliminaries.  They  demand  that  a  man  must  first 
believe  in  some  doctrine,  and  that  the  right  thing  cannot 
be  done  unless  it  has  received  its  propelling  force  from  the 
tenets  of  some  creed.  In  consequence  thereof,  the  main 
activity  of  all  churches  turns  to  these  preliminaries  of 
belief,  while  the  ethical  movement,  allowing  every  person 
to  settle  the  eternal  questions  for  himself  as  best  he  can, 
demands  a  participation  in  all  such  work  as  not  only 
shall  improve  the  present  condition  of  society,  but  which 
will  make  him  nobler,  better,  a  moral  being  of  the  purest 
possible  quality.  In  a  word,  the  author  of  "  Creed  and 
Deed  "  repeated  again  most  emphatically  that  religion 
must  begin   and  end   with   deeds ;    that    creed   was   an 

122 


MOSES   MAIMONIDES  123 

alien  admixture  to  it,  and  that  it  ought  to  be  separated 
from  it. 

This,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  understand  the  professor, 
was  the  drift  and  gist  of  his  address,  and,  although  I  may 
not  be  ready  to  subscribe  to  the  rest  of  liis  deductions, 
and  may  differ  with  him  also  on  some  other  points,  I  must 
say  that  I  took  pride  in  him  when  I  read  what  lie  called 
"his  points  of  departure  from  the  churches,"  for,  my 
friends,  if  he  has  ever  testified  to  his  descent,  if  he  has 
ever  proven  that  Jewish  blood  Hows  in  his  veins,  if  he  has 
ever  betrayed  the  source  from  which  his  i>hilosophy,  liis 
ethics,  and  his  moral  sensitiveness  have  been  drawn,  it 
was  in  this  very  address.  Only  a  man  who  was  nourished 
at  the  bosom  of  Judaism,  as  he  was,  and  who  has  learned 
to  understand  it  as  well  as  he  has,  could  have  so  distinctly 
marked  the  line  by  which  true  religion  stands  apart  from 
the  church.  Speaking  of  his  dispute  with  the  churches 
and  of  the  most  important  points  of  departure  from  them, 
he  enumerates  exactly  the  very  same  points  over  which 
Judaism  has  ever  been  in  dispute  with  them,  and  in  which 
it  has  ever  departed  from  them.  Originally,  Judaism 
knew  nothing  of  a  creed  ;  it  was  meant  and  made  to  be  a 
religion  of  deed;  it  never  insisted  upon  preliminaries; 
it  alwa3^s  appealed  to  the  conscience  of  man  directly,  and 
expected  an  immediate  response.  The  Bible  nowhere 
commands  that  certain  things  must  be  believed.  It  tells 
its  story  as  well  as  its  authors  knew  how  to  tell  it,  and 
teaches  what  the  Israelite  was  expected  "  to  do  ;  "  how  he 
was  expected  "  to  act."  True  that  what  Judaism  recom- 
mended several  thousand  years  ago  is  not  applicable 
to-day,  but  it  is  not  the  law  which  makes  or  unmakes 
Judaism  ;  it  is  the  demand  made  by  Judaism  upon  its 
adherents,  tliat  they  should  endeavor  to  attain  the  highest 


124  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

possible  moral  perfection,  and  to  establish  the  purest  and 
possibly  happiest  social  relations  by  telling  deeds. 
Creeds,  the  preliminaries  of  which  Professor  Adler 
speaks,  which  bar  the  way  to  a  direct  appeal  to  the  human 
heart,  are  an  undesirable  admixture  to  our  religion;  we 
owe  them  to  Christianity,  and  they  have  been  alien  to 
Judaism  until  the  twelfth  century  of  the  common  era. 
-  We  have  noticed  the  first  symptoms  of  that  infection 
which  Judaism  caught  from  Christianit}'  in  the  "  Cho- 
zari "  of  Jehuda  Halevi,  and  now  we  shall  find  it  still 
more  developed  in  some  of  the  writings  of  Moses  Maimo- 
nides. 

Moses  Maimonides  was  tlie  first  Jew  who  insisted  upon 
the  preliminaries  of  a  creed,  which  Professor  Adler  so 
justly  opposes.  He  was  the  first  Jew  who  offered  a  set 
of  articles,  a  kind  of  a  constitution,  to  which  every 
Israelite  was  bound  to  subscribe  before  he  should  be 
admitted  into  the  community  and  permitted  to  join 
actively  in  the  religious  work.  Unless  he  accepted  these 
articles,  one  and  all,  he  was  to  be  considered  as  standing 
outside  of  its  pale.  Great,  however,  as  was  the  renown 
and  the  authority  which  Moses  Maimonides  enjoj'ed  and 
exerted  upon  Judaism,  you  must  not  think  that  the 
Israelites  ever  consented  to  be  incarcerated  in  the  cells  of 
a  narrow  creed.  They  revolted  constantly  against  it,  and, 
although  his  thirteen  articles  of  creed  were  embodied  into 
the  prayer-books,  although  they  were  read  and  sung  in 
every  morning  service  and  sometimes  at  the  close  of  an 
evening  service,  although  they  were  inscribed  upon  mar- 
ble tablets  or  upon  the  walls  of  synagogues,  Israelites 
never  subscribed  to  them  in  their  totality,  nor  did  they 
ever  waste  their  energies  on  the  propagation  of  these 
preliminaries,  ignoring  the  vital  principle  of  Judaism  — 


MOSES   MAIMONIDHS  125 

deeds.  The  most  curious  fact,  however,  which,  better 
than  anything  else,  proves  my  assertion,  is  that  not  even 
the  author  of  the  thirteen  articles  of  creed  accepted  them. 
He  had  inserted  some  of  the  planks  of  his  platform  as 
a  kind  of  compromise,  and  ignored  them  so  totally  in  his 
subsequent  writings  that  he  was  taken  to  task  for  it ; 
others  he  interpreted  in  a  manner  to  suit  himself,  and 
while  the  masses  beheld  one  thing  in  them,  he  and  his 
disciples  meant  quite  another.  While  in  his  paraphrase 
of  Israel's  creed  the  belief  in  a  personal  God  is  stipulated, 
his  conception  of  the  divinity  as  given  in  his  other  works 
leaned  decidedly  towards  the  Aristotelian  conception,  and 
was  not  very  different  from  the  pantheism  of  Spinoza. 
He  acknowledged  prophetism,  and  Moses  to  have  been 
the  greatest  prophet  who  ever  lived  ;  he  held  that  such 
an  acknowledgment  was  one  of  the  necessary  prelimina- 
ries to  which-  every  Jew  must  subscribe,  but  his  inter- 
pretation of  prophetism  cuts  right  through  this  very 
plank  and  makes  it  unsafe  to  stand  upon.  The  author  of 
the  thirteen  articles  of  creed  represented  in  his  person  the 
Judaism  of  his  time.  Some  strange  matter  had  been 
accidentally  infused  into  its  blood,  and  though  its  system 
yielded  to  the  force  of  the  poison,  whatever  of  its  nature 
was  still  sound  endeavored  to  eliminate  it. 

It  is  rather  a  hard  task  for  any  one,  unless  he  be  a 
scholar,  to  compel  his  imagination  to  dive  into  the  past 
and  bring  up  from  its  bottom  a  true  picture  of  a  jcertain 
period ;  it  is  thus  difficult  for  us  to  understand  the  logic 
of  past  generations,  which  to  them  Avas  as  clear  as  sun- 
light, or  to  judge  them  by  their  own  standard  of  right  and 
wrong.  We  are  apt  to  admire  what  is  not  at  all  admira- 
ble, and  to  pity  what  is  by  no  means  pitiable,  whenever 
we  are  confronted  with  the  past.     We  are  accustomed  to 


126  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

liberty  of  thought  and  speech;  we  listen  patiently  to  the 
advocates  of  all  kinds  of  theories,  to  Field  as  well  as  to 
Ingersoll,  to  Talmage  as  well  as  to  Felix  Adler,  and  we 
reserve  our  judgment ;  we  are,  therefore,  utterly  unable 
to  understand  why  a  philosopher  like  Moses  Maimonides 
should  have  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  his  time,  and 
should  have  formed  a  creed,  if  his  better  Jewish  senti- 
ment revolted  against  it.  We  forget,  however,  that  at 
his  time  not  only  liberty  of  thought  and  speech  was  not 
granted,  but  that  a  person  had  to  decide  to  which  of  the 
three  religions  he  would  belong.  He  was  to  be  either  a 
Christian,  a  Mohammedan,  or  a  Jew.  After  he  had 
decided,  he  was  compelled  to  act  in  accordance  with 
the  prescriptions  of  his  adopted  religion.  Each  of  these 
religions  had  drawn  a  circle  around  itself ;  only  he  who 
stood  within  that  line  could  partake  of  its  privileges  and 
blessings,  wliile  those  standing  outside  of  it  were  cursed. 
Excommunication,  that  is,  the  expulsion  of  a  heretic 
beyond  the  boundary  lines  of  society,  was  of  frequent 
occurrence,  and  was  a  punishment  worse  than  bodily 
death  ;  it  was  social  death.  The  Jew,  for  example,  whose 
reason  would  revolt  against  some  Jewish  institution,  or 
who  would  find  the  present  to  be  in  discord  with  the  past, 
could  not  live  and  act  as  he  pleased ;  if  he  left  Judaism, 
he  had  to  choose  between  Islam  and  Christianity,  both  of 
which  were  still  less  acceptable  to  him.  We  are  living  at 
present  in  a  time  of  religious  anarchy  ;  we  acknowledge 
no  religious  government;  every  person  is  allowed  to 
think  for  himself  and  to  form  his  own  religious  opinion ; 
a  rabbi  or  a  leader  of  a  religious  community  has  no  more 
authority  to  prescribe  a  rule  than  has  any  of  his  followers — 
he  can  only  succeed  in  his  work  if  he  is  able  to  convince 
his  hearers  that  his  proposed  plans  are  feasible,  beneficial, 


MOSES   MAIMONIDES  127 

and  profitable;  and  it  is,  therefore,  impossible  for  ns  to 
transport  ourselves  into  a  tiiue  when  religious  socialism 
was  in  its  prime,  when  the  representatives  of  religion  did 
all  the  thinking  for  the  individual,  prescribed  to  him 
minutely  what  he  was  to  do,  and  cajoled  him  into  obedi- 
ence by  threats  of  expelling  him  from  its  ranks  if  he  should 
dare  to  resist.  Christianity  had  established  this  religious 
socialism,  Mohammedanism  copied  it,  and  Judaism,  though 
reluctantly,  followed  in  their  wake. 

Moses  Maimonides,  or  Maimuni,  the  son  of  Maimuni 
Ben  Joseph,  was  born  in  Cordova,  May  30,  1135.  The 
fashion  has  lately  spread  among  us  to  adopt  some  middle 
name,  and,  if  parents  neglect  to  select  such  an .  addi- 
tional name  for  their  children,  the  mistake  is  })romptly 
corrected  by  the  young  ones,  and  some  initial  is  squeezed 
between  their  personal  and  family  name.  This  fashion 
is  by  no  means  a  new  one.  If  Moses  Maimonides  should 
have  ordered  visiting-cards,  the  engraver  would  have  had 
to  inscribe  upon  the  plate  the  following  list  of  names : 
Abu  Amram  Musa  Ben  Maimuni  Obaid  Allah.  His 
father  was  a  man  of  great  erudition  and  the  teacher  of 
his  son.  At  his  time  the  struggles  between  Islam  and 
Christianity  for  the  possession  of  Spain  were  nearing  a 
final  catastrophe  ;  step  by  step,  the  Moslems  were  pressed 
towards  the  south,  but  occasionally  they  would  reconquer 
some  of  their  lost  territory  and  liold  it  for  a  time.  No 
matter  who  the  victor  was  in  these  struggles,  the  Jews 
had  to  suffer.  In  1148  Cordova  was  taken  by  the  j\Ios- 
lems,  and  both  Jews  and  Christians  were  left  the  choice 
between  emigration,  conversion,  or  death.  Maimonides 
emigrated  with  his  family  and  settled  down  for  a  few 
years  in  Almeria ;  but  when  also  this  city  had  fallen,  in 
1151,  into  the  hands  of  the  Moslems,  who  then  displayed 


128  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

a  most  fanatical  and  intolerant  spirit,  Maimonides  was 
compelled  to  travel  from  place  to  place.  Thus  Moses 
grew  up  a  young  man.  He  learned  whenever  an  opportu- 
nity was  offered  to  him,  from  Jews,  Christians,  and  Moham- 
medans, and  by  the  latter  he  was  introduced  into  the 
sciences  of  that  time  —  medicine,  astronomy,  and  phil- 
osophy. Aristotle  became  soon  his  model,  the  ideal 
which  he  endeavored  to  reach.  While  thus  travelling  he 
began  a  work  which  he  did  not  finish  for  many  years, 
viz.,  a  commentary  to  the  Mishna.  Wonderful  was  the 
memory  he  possessed.  He  knew  the  Talmud  by  heart, 
and  worked  at  the  commentary  without  a  library,  even 
without  the  books  which  his  commentary  should  elucidate. 
In  1159  the  family  removed  to  Fez,  in  Africa.  Why  they 
went  to  a  country  where  religious  intolerance  was  then 
prevalent  is  not  known,  but  it  is  known  and  established 
beyond  doubt  that  the  whole  family  of  Maimonides  was 
compelled  to  embrace  the  religion  of  Mohammed.  Some 
historians  have  never  forgiven  Moses  his  apostasy ;  others 
have  excused  his  step  as  having  been  a  compulsory  one, 
saying  that  in  his  heart  he  had  ever  remained  a  faithful 
Jew.  Be  this  as  it  may,  his  intercourse  with  Moham- 
medans must  surely  have  influenced  a  man  of  his  genius 
more  or  less,  and  must  have  opened  views  to  him  which 
otherwise  he  would  not  have  sighted.  About  that  time 
some  Jewish  writer  had  issued  a  pamphlet  in  wliich  he 
vehemently  censured  the  apostasy  of  the  Jews;  he  argued 
that  it  was  a  crime  to  accept  Mohammed  as  a  prophet 
or  to  join  Moslems  in  their  prayers,  and  that  the  Jews 
should  rather  suffer  martyrdom  than  turn  apostates. 
This  pamphlet  was  to  strike  a  blow  at  him  and  the 
many  who  had  embraced  the  Mohammedan  religion. 
People   began  to  question  themselves  whether  it  would 


MOSES   MAIMONIDES  129 

not  be  more  consistent  to  believe  tlioroughly  in  Moham- 
med and  to  be  satislied  that  the  mission  of  Judaism  had 
ended  than  to  profess  it  hypocritically  and  adhere  as 
hv[)ocriticalIy  to  the  old  religion.  Judaism  was  to  them 
at  that  time  a  set  of  ceremonies  which  every  Israelite  had 
to  fulfil,  if  not  openly,  at  least  secretly,  to  avoid  the  visi- 
tation of  God.  Moses  Maimonides  must  have  been 
wounded  to  the  quick  by  this  shaft,  for  he  undertook  to 
defend  the  action  of  these  pseudo-Mohammedans  or 
pseudo-Jews.  He  brought  proof  from  the  Talmud  that 
Rabbi  Meir  and  Rabbi  Elieser  Ben  Hyrcanos  had  done 
similar  things,  and  still  had  remained  not  only  Jews,  but 
renowned  Jews  as  well.  Martyrdom  was  an  excellent 
manifestation  of  a  man's  adherence  to  his  religion,  and 
those  who  had  the  courage  to  undergo  it  should  do  so, 
but  he,  for  one,  and  with  him  many  others,  was  lacking 
such  a  courage,  and,  being  compelled  by  force  to  submit  to 
the  laws  of  the  land,  he  could  not  consider  himself  an 
offender  or  a  criminal  as  long  as  he  was  not  a  free  moral 
agent.  Mohammedanism  was,  finally,  not  idolatry.  It 
taught  the  same  One  God  and  demanded  no  criminal 
action.  The  law  was  satisfied  if  the  pseudo-Moslem  pro- 
nounced the  formula,  "  There  is  but  one  God,  and  Moham- 
med is  his  prophet,"  and  if  he  visited  the  mosque  for 
the  purpose  of  prayer,  but  it  did  not  watch  whether  he 
believed  what  he  said  or  what  he  prayed.  IMaimonides 
advised,  therefore,  to  wait  })atiently  till  times  would 
change  for  the  better,  although  he  did  not  believe  that 
the  Messiah  would  come  in  the  near  future.  This  defence 
was  written  in  1164,  and  shows,  on  the  one  hand,  an  en- 
tirely new  conception  of  Judaism,  and,  on  the  other,  the 
endeavor  to  clear  himself  before  his  own  conscience. 
The  pamphlet,  however,  stiri-ed  up  the  wrath  of  the  Mo- 


180  .     DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

hammedans,  and  he  was  compelled  to  flee  for  his  life.  In 
the  night  of  April  18,  1165,  he  boarded  with  his  family  a 
vessel,  and,  after  a  stormy  voyage,  arrived  on  May  16  in 
Acco.  Half  a  year  later  we  find  him  and  his  family  in 
Jerusalem,  then  in  Alexandria,  and  finally  in  Cairo.  The 
year  1166  was  disastrous  to  him.  His  father  died,  and  his 
brother,  who  had  supported  the  family,  was  drowned  in 
the  Indian  Ocean,  With  his  brother  was  lost  their  fort- 
une, and  he  who  formerly  had  devoted  himself  entirely 
to  his  studies  was  now  compelled  to  work  for  his  support 
and  that  of  his  family,  which  was  enlarged  by  the  depend- 
ents of  his  lamented  brother.  He  established  himself  as 
a  physician,  but  he  had  ill  luck,  little  practice,  and  made 
only  a  scanty  living.  In  1168  he  finished  his  commentary 
to  the  Mishna,  a  masterpiece  of  order  and  arrangement. 
In  this  work  he  showed  already  that  his  Judaism  was  one 
of  his  own  making ;  he  gave  a  novel  construction  to  rev- 
elation, denied  miracles,  and  symbolized  the  ritual.  He 
held  that  only  such  Talmudical  traditions  were  genuine 
about  which  no  difference  of  opinion  had  ever  existed  ;  as 
truth  could  be  only  one  thing,  two  different  opinions 
could  not  both  be  correct.  While  his  commentary  illus- 
trated the  Talmud  and  made  it  accessible  to  all,  it  under- 
mined its  very  structure.  Deceiving  himself  in  a  similar 
way,  he  produced  about  the  same  time  the  thirteen  articles 
of  creed.  He  desired  that  every  Israelite  should  examine 
them  and  not  believe  them  blindly,  but  at  the  same  time 
he  considered  the  Israelite  who  would  not  subscribe  to 
them  to  be  a  heretic,  and  one  who  should  be  excommuni- 
cated. Through  these  writings  as  well  as  through  his 
numerous  disciples  his  fame  began  to  spread.  He  became 
then  the  physician  of  Sultan  Saladin's  son,  and  King 
Richard  I.  of  England  offered  him  a  similar  position  at 


MOSES    MAT  MON  IDES  131 

his  court,  which,  however,  he  declined.  He  became, 
furthermore,  in  1177,  the  official  leader  of  the  Jewish  con- 
gregation in  Cairo;  but  his  position  of  rabbi  must  not  be 
compared  to  any  such  station  to-day.  It  was  an  honorary 
office  and  no  salary  attached  to  it ;  it  was  not  his  business 
to  preach,  pray,  or  teach  a  school,  but,  in  conjunction  with 
some  other  learned  men,  it  was  his  duty  to  decide  in  re- 
gard to  all  such  religious  questions  as  were  then  consid- 
ered of  great  importance.  From  congregations  near  and 
far  deputations  arrived,  questioning  him  in  regard  to  relig- 
ious duties,  and  his  decisions  were  considered  binding. 

A  second  work,  which  spread  his  fame  still  further,  was 
his  Mishne  Thora.  It  was  a  codified  arrangement  of  the 
whole  Talmudical  law;  a  grand  attempt  made  to  bring 
order  into  the  chaos  of  the  Talmud.  In  this  second  work 
he  shows  again  that  he  had  formed  entirely  new  ideas  in 
regard  to  the  old  conceptions.  His  conception  of  the 
divinity  and  his  interpretation  of  immortality  were  carved 
rather  after  the  pattern  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy 
than  after  that  of  the  Bible.  Firmly  believing  that  the 
philosophy  of  Aristotle  could  not  be  shaken,  and  at  the 
same  time  that  the  Jewish  religion  is  undeniably  true,  he 
made  efforts  to  prove  that  the  latter  was  not  more  nor  less 
than  a  revealed  philosophy,  and  that  Moses  and  Aristotle 
could  not  but  agree  in  all  points.  Such  strange  theories 
were  not  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed  and  without  an  adverse 
criticism.  They  were  looked  upon  by  contemporaries 
with  distrust,  and  attacked  during  his  life-time  and  still 
more  fiercely  after  his  death. 

His  last  and  most  remarkable  book  wns  finished  in  1190. 
He  called  it  "More  Nebuchim,  or  Guide  of  the  Eri'ing." 
It  was  written  as  if  it  was  an  instruction  to  one  of  his 
disciples  how  to  overcome  doubt  and    how  to   reconcile 


132  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

Judaism  with  science,  or,  what  was  the  same,  with  philos- 
ophy. To  discuss  this  remarkable  work,  from  which  not 
only  Jewish  but  also  Christian  and  Mohammedan  philos- 
ophers have  extensively  drawn  their  supj^l}^,  would  take 
more  time  than  can  just  now  be  devoted  to  it.  It  must 
suffice  that  the  force  of  it  is  not  yet  expended,  and  that 
Moses  Mendelssohn,  one  hundred  years  ago,  has  kindled  his 
light  on  the  fire  of  the  "More  Nebuchim,"  written  by 
Maimonides  in  the  twelfth  century.  Maimonides  proves 
himself,  in  this  work,  the  rational  and  logical  thinker  he 
is,  although  both  his  rationalism  and  logic  are  limited  hy 
his  defective  knowledge  of  the  universe.  Defending 
Judaism  with  one  hand,  he  builds  up  with  his  other  a 
Judaism  which  must  have  been  a  new  and  strange  sight 
to  his  contemporaries  and  at  variance  with  the  past.  He 
conceives  God  as  a  creative  force  outside  of  the  universe, 
which  he  divides  into  different  spheres.  He  believes  in 
the  existence  of  angels,  and  thinks  that  the  stars  are 
directed  by  them  ;  that,  inspired  by  the  desire  to  reach 
divine  perfection,  they  move  towards  God,  and  that  their 
motions  influence  all  the  other  beings  whicli  inhabit  other 
spheres  to  follow  them.  The  soul  is  to  him  not  a  distinct 
being,  but  a  mere  force,  and  he  does  not  concede  to  it  an 
immortality  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  If  the  divine 
spark  in  man  is  able,  during  the  life  on  earth,  to  disen- 
tangle itself  from  the  corrupting  embraces  of  matter,  it 
becomes  fit  to  return  to  its  source,  and  is  united  with  it 
right  after  its  departure  from  the  body.  The  soul  which 
was  not  able  to  keep  itself  at  such  a  distance  from  the 
body  perishes  with  it ;  or,  in  other  words,  there  is  a 
Nirvana  for  good  souls  as  well  as  an  annihilation  for 
wicked  ones.  The  result  was  in  both  cases  the  same, 
and  whereas  only  a  very  few  could  rise  to  divine  sublim- 


MOSES    MALMONIUES  133 

ity,  the  great  majority  of  people  liad  to  hope  for  no 
further  existence  after  death.  Resurrection,  a  belief  which 
he  had  formerly  included  in  his  articles  of  creed,  was 
now  entirely  discountenanced  in  his  "  More  Nebuchim." 
Prophetism  appeared  to  him  a  peculiar  force  of  imagina- 
tion, the  attempt  of  the  pure  soul  to  lift  itself  to  a 
higher  level.  All  narratives  in  the  Bible  speaking  of 
prophetism,  or  which  are  founded  upon  prophetism,  must, 
therefore,  not  be  accepted  as  real  and  genuine.  He  is  not 
sure  whether  miracles  may  have  occurred  or  not.  The 
same  creator  might  have  created  temporarily  a  new  order 
of  things,  but  the  number  of  miracles  in  the  Bible  ought  to 
be  Hunted,  and,  after  all,  should  not  be  regarded  as  proofs 
of  the  truth  of  any  statement.  Moses  was  the  greatest 
of  prophets  ;  he  had  so  mastered  his  passions  that  his  soul 
had  risen  to  the  sphere  of  the  angels,  and  that  thus  all 
the  covers  which  limited  human  sight  had  fallen  from  his 
eyes.  His  laws  were,  therefore,  to  be  carefully  guarded 
and  respected  by  all  Israelites.  In  regard  to  biblical 
ordinances,  he  endeavored  to  find  their  purposes  when- 
ever they  appeai'ed  unreasonable  or  untimely.  Sacrifices, 
for  instance,  he  considered  to  have  been  merely  a  conces- 
sion made  by  Moses  to  a  barbarous  time  ;  the  dietary  laws 
to  have  been  given  for  sanitary  purposes,  and  other  laws 
to  enable  the  soul  to  extricate  itself  from  the  meshes  of 
the  tempting  flesh.  It  is  obvious  that  he  was  too  much 
of  a  philosopher  to  believe  in  the  literal  meaning  of  the 
Bible,  and  too  much  the  child  of  his  time  to  draw  the 
necessary  philosophical  deductions  from  jjhilosophical 
premises.  He  ap[)ear.s,  therefore,  to  belie\e  at  one  mo- 
ment, and  t(.  he  a  pronounced  skeptic  and  rationalist  at 
the  next.  It  was  felt  by  his  admirers,  and  even  by  his 
most  enthusiastic  disciples,  that  his  theories  were  not  in 


134  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

consonance  with  Judaism  ;  but  his  renown,  his  great  learn- 
ing, and  the  official  position  which  he  filled  near  the  per- 
son of  the  sultan,  did  not  allow  grumblers  to  express 
their  opinion. 

On  December  12, 1204,  he  died.  He  was  buried  amid  the 
lamentations  of  his  friends  ;  but  no  sooner  had  the  earth 
covered  what  had  remained  of  him,  when  the  long  pent- 
up  dissension  burst  forth  in  a  storm,  and  split  Judaism 
again  into  two  camps  —  one  held  by  his  defenders,  one  by 
his  opponents. 

Attacking  a  man  is  always  proof  of  his  originality; 
and  the  fiercer  the  strife  waxes,  the  more  valuable  are 
its  results  for  the  community.  Moses  Maimonides  was 
an  original  thinker  ;  that  is,  original  for  his  time.  His 
works  lifted  Judaism  out  of  the  old  and  well  worn  ruts, 
and  gave  it  a  new  direction.  The  direction,  however, 
was  one  that  worked  both  ways.  While  he  had  empha- 
sized once  and  forever  tlie  rationality  of  Judaism,  he  had, 
nevertheless,  imprisoned  it  in  the  cell  of  a  creed  ;  while 
he  had  made  skeptics  f»f  liis  fi'iends,  he  had  sup[)]ied 
their  opponents  with  weapons  of  attack  ;  while  he  had 
built  up  the  Talmud  by  his  commentaries,  he  liad  under- 
mined it  by  the  j^hilosophy  with  wliicli  he  saturated  his 
treatises.  The  reason  for  such  an  ambiguity  was  that  lie 
had  been  too  far  in  advance  of  his  time.  Had  he  lived 
at  our  time,  and  in  a  country  where  he  could  have 
spoken  and  written  what  his  heart  impelled  him  to,  he 
would  have  been  probably  more  consistent  in  his  deduc- 
tions, and  would  have  given  to  the  world  a  philosophy 
that  would  have  astonished  all.  Whether  it  would 
have  covered  our  present  conception  of  Judaism  is  a, 
question  of  so  problematic  a  nature  that  it  is  best  not  to 
attempt  an  answer. 


MOSES    MAIMOMIDES  135 

It  is  surprising  that,  in  view  of  such  facts,  we  are  still 
admonished  to  defend  the  Judaism  of  our  forefathers,  and, 
as  the  phrase  goes,  "  to  transmit  our  hoi}'  religion  untram- 
melled to  our  children  ;  "  but  has  ever  a  generation  trans- 
mitted the  same  Judaism  which  it  had  received,  to  the 
next  one  ?  Has  not,  on  the  contrary,  every  age  changed 
it,  added  to  it,  taken  away  from  it,  and  pressed  its  pecul- 
iar stamp  upon  it  ?  The  Judaism  of  Maimonides  was 
not  the  Judaism  of  Jochanan  Ben  Saccai,  and  still  less 
that  of  any  previous  generation.  How  can  it  be  expected 
that  our  Judaism  should  not  be  different  from  that  of  the 
past? 

We  have  found  that  during  the  twelfth  century  the 
dogma  of  belief  had  crept  into  Judaism,  in  spite  of  all  the 
opposition  which  reason  brought  to  bear  against  it,  and 
that  this  dogma,  originally  Christian,  had  assumed  form 
in  the  thirteen  articles  of  creed  composed  by  Maimonides. 
We  shall  now  behold  another  and  still  more  astonishing 
acquisition.  We  shall  find  that  another  doctrine,  again 
Christian  in  its  inception,  has  found  or  forced  its  way  into 
Judaism.  Strange  to  say,  it  is  the  doctrine  of  salvation, 
the  idea  that  the  highest  aim  of  man  is  to  be  saved  from 
an  eternal  perdition  to  which  he  had  been  doomed  through 
the  fall  of  Adam.  Joseph  Albo,  a  Spanish  rabbi  and 
physician  living  in  the  first  half  ot  the  fifteenth  century, 
is  the  advocate  and  expounder  of  this  theory.  How  such 
a  theory,  so  contradictory  to  the  very  spirit  and  essence 
of  Judaism,  could  have  insinuated  itself  into  the  Jews  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  could  have  been  admitted  by  them 
into  their  homes,  will  be  seen  from  a  description  of  Joseph 
Albo  and  his  time. 


XI. 

JOSEPH   ALBO   AND   HIS    TIME 

Moses  Maimonides,  of  whom  I  spoke  to  you  last  week, 
is  represented  to  have  originated,  or,  at  least,  frequently 
used,  a  phrase  which  since  his  time  has  become  proverbial. 
"•God,"  said  he,  "has  placed  the  eye  in  a  man's  forehead, 
and  not  in  the  back  of  the  head,  that  he  may  look  ahead, 
and  not  backward."  Which  one  of  us  would  not  gladly 
indorse  that  metaphor,  or  which  one  of  us  progressionists 
would  not  apply  it  to  his  own  work,  and  proudly  quote 
the  great  Maimonides  as  authority  in  support  of  it  ?  Oc- 
casions, however,  are  not  rare  when  we  would  wish  that 
an  exception  to  the  rule  had  taken  place,  and  that  some 
people's  eyes  were  placed  in  the  back  part  of  their  heads 
rather  than  in  their  foreheads.  If,  for  example,  all  those 
who  glorify  the  "good  old  times"  at  the  expense  of  the 
present,  who  fail  to  see  the  progess  which  the  human  race 
has  made  from  age  to  age,  and  who  fear  and  predict  still 
further  deterioration  of  mankind  in  the  future,  if  all  such 
could  have  the  position  of  their  eyes  changed  for  a  mo- 
ment, if  they  could  be  made  to  look  backward  and  to 
examine  more  closely  those  "  good  old  times,"  they  would 
learn,  I  am  sure,  not  only  to  appreciate  the  present,  but 
to  love  it,  and,  instead  of  dreading  the  future,  they  would 
place  all  their  confidence  and  all  their  hopes  in  it.  Man- 
kind has  not  deteriorated,  it  has  grown  better.  A  flood 
of  light  illumines  the  present  world,  and  the  intensity  of 

136 


JOSEPH    ALBO    AND    HIS    TIME  187 

that  light  is  still  increasing.  There  is  less  rudeness,  less 
ignorance,  less  intemperance,  less  vice,  less  superstition, 
less  intolerance  to-day  than  there  has  been  ever  before. 
If  people  are  still  found  with  vicious  inclinations,  there 
were  proportionately  more  of  that  class  before  ;  if  intem- 
perance is  still  a  curse,  what  is  it  in  comparison  to  the 
intemperance  that  reigned  fifty  years  ago,  to  say  notliing 
of  those  "  good  old  times"  when  noblemen,  the  cream  of 
society,  held  their  drinking-matclies,  and  would  not  stop 
revelling  until  they  were  all  lying  dead-drunk  under  the 
table.  Much  is  still  to  be  wished  for  in  regard  to  the 
establishment  of  purer  rehitions  among  the  sexes,  but  the 
offences  committed  in  our  age  dwindle  into  nothing  when 
compared  with  the  flagrant  unchastity  of  men  and  women 
in  former  ages.  Would  that  all  the  pessimistic  croakers 
who  run  down  the  present  state  of  civilization  were  com- 
pelled to  look  backwards,  or  that  they  could  be  trans- 
ferred for  a  few  weeks  into  the  midst  of  the  "good  old 
times."  To  be  sure,  they  would  change  their  minds  before 
long.  In  fact,  things  and  conditions  have  changed  so 
much  for  the  better  that  we  doubt  and  wonder  that  it 
was  possible  for  by-gone  generations  to  have  been  so  igno- 
rant, so  bigoted,  so  wicked  and  vicious  as  dry  historical 
facts  make  them  out  to  have  been. 

If  ever  a  time  was  anxious  to  get  at  the  true  inward- 
ness of  a  fact  by  listening  to  both  sides  of  a  question,  it 
is  ours ;  if  ever  a  time  was  eager  to  increase  its  knowledge 
by  a  controversy,  it  is  ours.  Newspapers  and  periodicals 
collect  eagerly  the  differing  views  of  different  men  recog- 
nized as  authorities  in  a  particular  line,  and  place  them 
side  by  side  for  the  instruction  of  their  readers,  thus  sup- 
plying with  journalistic  tact  a  popular  demand.  Debat- 
ing societies  are  formed  everywhere,  training  the  rising 


138  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

generation  not  only  in  the  arts  of  attack  and  defence,  but, 
what  is  far  more  important,  in  the  art  of  gracefully  sub- 
mitting to  the  better  argument  and  of  appreciating  merit 
even  in  an  opponent.  But  after  disputants  have  been 
heard  twice,  the  case  is  left  to  the  decision  of  the  au- 
dience, be  it  as  small  as  to  comprise  merely  the  few 
members  of  a  village  debating  club,  or  as  large  as  is  the 
number  of  readers  of  a  journal  or  periodical  of  wide  circu- 
lation. Who  would  think  to-day  of  settling  by  debate,  for 
good,  questions  like  the  following:  Is  the  pen  mightier 
than  the  sword?  Shall  capital  punishment  be  abolished? 
Is  the  system  of  prohibition  preferable  to  that  of  license  ? 
or.  Is  free  trade  of  greater  advantage  to  a  countr}^  than 
protection  ?  Who  would  dream  to-day  of  making  an  end 
to  all  conflicting  religious  opinions  by  summoning  the 
representative  leaders  of  the  sects  to  a  public  debate, 
demanding  that  the  side  which  is  defeated  in  the  theologi- 
cal tournament  should  adopt,  either  by  free  will  or  by 
compulsion,  the  tenets  of  the  victorious  party ;  that,  for 
example,  Mr.  Field  should  turn  atheist  if  Mr.  Ingersoll's 
arguments  proved  to  be  the  stronger  ones,  or  Mr.  Inger- 
soll  should  be  compelled  to  go,  prayer-book  in  hand,  every 
Sunday  to  the  Presbyterian  church,  and  to  worship  what 
he  calls  the  "  Presbyterian  God,"  if  Mr.  Field's  arguments 
are  tlie  better  ones.  The  mere  thought  is  so  absurdly 
ridiculous  that  it  is  dismissed  with  a  smile.  But,  my 
friends,  all  such  and  similar  absurdities  have  been  reali- 
ties in  the  "  good  old  times."  They  are  not  fancies  of  an 
overheated  imagination,  they  are  ,no  fairy-stories,  they 
have  happened  in  clear  daylight,  and  many  a  soul  has 
been  subjected  to  agonies  of  which  we  to-day,  thank  God ! 
lack  imagination.  Were  they  not  glorious  times  when 
witches  were    strangled,  heretics  burned,    and   religious 


JOSEPH    ALBO    AND    HIS   TIME  139 

debates  held  on  the  question  "  Has  tlie  Messiah  come,  or 
is  he  yet  to  come  ?  "  not  for  the  mere  purpose  of  investi- 
gating and  illuminating  the  intricate  subject,  but  for  the 
purpose  of  a  wholesale  conversion  of  Jews.  Were  those 
not  glorious  times  when  such  a  dangerous  .game  was 
plaj'^ed,  not  for  mere  fun,  but  "for  keeps,"  as  the  phrase 
goes  among  buys  ;  when  the  boys  who  gambled  for  sucli 
high  stakes  were  not  even  a  match  for  each  other,  but 
when  the  big  boy  forced  the  little  one  to  play  with 
him. 

Some  of  you,  my  friends,  have  probably  read  the  poem, 
written  by  Heinrich  Heine,  entitled  "  Disputation."  The 
story  told  therein  so  humorously  and  wittily  must  have 
appeared  to  you  as  one  of  those  satirical  effusions  for 
which  the  writer  is  so  famous.  You  must  have  thought 
that  it  was  invented  by  him  to  ridicule  both  the  Jewish 
and  the  Christian  religions,  because  you  could  never  have 
believed  that  such  a  tournament  between  rabbles  and 
Dominican  monks  could  have  ever  been  enacted  in  real- 
ity. With  a  few  slight  touches,  however,  which  were  the 
outcome  of  the  poet's  humor,  the  main  facts  of  the  story 
are  literally  true,  so  true  that  the  sarcastic  Heine  even 
hesitates  to  finish  it,  to  tell  the  result  of  the  disputation, 
and  unceremoniously  drops  the  curtain  with  a  sneer,  at  a 
time  wljen  our  interest  in  the  debate  had  risen  to  the 
highest  point. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  Roman 
church  was  passing  through  severe  and  disastrous  trials. 
Two  popes  were  contesting  for  the  pa})al  tlirone,  both  so 
unworthy  of  it  that  the  council  of  Pisa  declared  them 
both  schismatics  and  excommunicated  them,  while  the 
holy  spirit,  resting  (as  was  supposed)  upon  the  conclave, 
chose  a  third  pope-,  who  was  not  better  than  his  rivals. 


140  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

The  two  popes,  though  anathematized,  still  continued  to 
officiate,  and  one  of  them  —  Benedict  XIII.  —  who  had 
found  the  stanchest  support  among  the  clergy  of  Spain, 
emigrated  into  the  province  (then  the  kingdom)  of  Ara- 
gon.  There  he  opened  a  court,  continued  to  issue  his 
bulls  as  before,  and  both  the  clerical  and  the  secular 
rulers  of  Spain  yielded  submissively  to  them.  The  three 
popes,  each  supported  by  some  prelates  and  princes, 
waged  a  diplomatic  war  with  one  another  which  finally 
came  to  an  end  at  the  celebrated  council  of  Constance. 
Benedict  XIII.,  wishing  to  ingratiate  himself  to  the 
Christian  community  by  some  great  deed,  struck  upon  the 
idea  of  converting  all  the  Jews  to  Christianity,  of  con- 
vincing that  obstinate  race  of  the  truth  of  the  Gospel,  and 
of  compelling  them  to  make  amends  for  the  alleged  crime 
which  they  had  committed  against  the  founder  of  the 
church.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  not  been  able  to  convince 
his  countrymen  that  he  was  the  long  expected  Messiah, 
still  the  corrupt  pope^  Benedict  XIII.,  thought  that  he 
could  prove  that  fact  to  the  Israelites.  It  is  not  yet 
proven  to  our  satisfaction  whether  tlie  plan  originated 
in  the  brains  of  the  pope,  or  whether  a  Jewish  apostate, 
Joshua  Lorqui,  alias  Geronimo  De  Santa  Fd,  had  hatched 
out  the  scheme  in  order  to  retaliate  for  some  injuries 
which  he  thought  he  had  received  from  the  part  of  liis 
former  coreligionists  on  account  of  his  apostasy.  Whether 
Geronimo  used  Pope  Benedict  as  a  tool,  or  whether  he 
was  used  as  such  by  the  pope,  is,  however,  immaterial  to 
us.  It  suffices  to  know  that  in  1412  the  pope  issued  an 
edict,  countersigned  by  King  Don  Fernando  of  Aragon, 
inviting  delegates  of  the  Jewish  community  to  the  city 
of  Tortosa,  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  some  important 
religious  questions.     He  proposed  to  prove  to  them  from 


JOSEPH   ALBO   AND   HIS   TIME  141 

Bible  and  Talmud  that  the  Messiah  had  already  come  in 
the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  A  heavy  fine  was  laid 
upon  the  Jews  if  they  should  refuse  to  attend  that  confer- 
ence, and  the  pope,  being  sure  that  he  could  convince  the 
upper  and  intelligent  classes  of  the  Jews  of  the  truth  of 
his  assertion,  had  no  doubt  the  rest  wcnild  follow  their 
example,  and  gladly  plunge  after  them  into  the  baptismal 
font.  If  the  Jews  were  thus  converted  as  if  by  miracle, 
the  pope  not  only  could  boast  of  his  efforts  as  highl}' 
meritorious,  but  he  could  point  to  the  direct  aid  of  God 
and  the  H0I3'  Virgin,  who  would  not  succor  an  undeserv- 
ing prelate.  The  plan  was  well  laid,  but  the  reckoning, 
as  the  adage  has  it,  was  made  without  the  host.  The 
Jews,  having  no  choice  in  the  matter,  sent  sixteen  of  their 
most  renowned  scholars,  at  the  appointed  time,  to  Tor- 
tosa,  aiuong  them  Don  Vidal  Ben  Benveniste  and  Joseph 
Albo.  Tliey  were  well  versed  not  only  in  Hebrew  lore 
but  in  all  the  sciences  of  the  age.  Don  Vidal,  for  in- 
stance, who  was  made  their  spokesman,  s[)()ke  Latin 
fluently,  and  Joseph  Albo,  a  physician,  was  well  acquainted 
with  classical  literature.  If  the  debate  had  been  held  for 
the  purpose  of  instruction,  or  if  the  Jewish  delegates  had 
been  really  free  to  speak  their  mind,  they  would  surely 
have  mustered  sufficient  courage  to  meet  their  adversa- 
ries with  a  bold  front,  but,  alas  !  they  knew  the  result 
beforehand.  No  matter  how  skilfully  they  would  play 
the  game,  they  would  be  deprived  of  the  stakes,  tlrey 
would  be  the  losers  at  all  events.  They  begged  to  be 
excused,  but  the  pope  was  determined.  They  agreed 
among  themselves  to  work  together,  and  not  to  contradict 
one  another ;  but  their  good  intentions  were  scattered  to 
the  wind  in  the  heat  of  the  debate,  because  they  them- 
selves were  not  of  the  same  mind  in  all  points.     A  part  of 


142  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

them  clung  to  the  rationalism  of  Maimonides,  another 
part  opposed  his  philosophy ;  they  offered,  therefore,  to 
the  enemy  no  closed-up  phalanx,  and  it  was  easy  for  him 
to  put  his  wedge  into  the  very  point  where  the  two  wings 
departed  from  each  other. 

The  tournament  was  opened  with  imposing  ceremonies, 
all  of  which  were  calculated  to  overawe  the  Jews,  and  the 
sessions  were  continued  for  a  year  and  nine  months.  The 
pope  assured  them  at  the  first  meeting,  with  bland  and 
suave  words,  that  he  would  not  do  them  any  harm,  but 
that,  on  the  contrary,  he  wished  for  nothing  better  than 
to  establish  their  welfare  here  and  hereafter.  He  was 
sitting  upon  a  high  throne,  surrounded  by  the  cardinals 
and  bishops  of  his  own  creation ;  the  audience  was  com- 
posed of  the  nobility,  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  high  rank 
adorned  in  their  most  costly  and  fashionable  garments. 
The  same  old  arguments  were  rehearsed  by  the  Christians 
and  answered  by  the  Jews  :  the  same  biblical  texts  were 
distorted  in  the  same  old  way,  and  were  in  vain  set. 
aright  by  the  Jews.  Whatever  they  might  say,  their 
words  were  maliciously  interpreted,  and  in  falsified  min- 
utes they  were  made  to  say  things  in  previous  sessions 
wliich  they  never  uttered.  When  the  validity  of  the  Tal- 
mud was  discussed,  and  the  most  absurd  accusations 
were  hurled  against  that  book,  as,  for  instance,  that  the 
Talmud  would  permit  the  Israelite  to  beat  his  parents 
and  blaspheme  God  and  to  commit  perjury,  or  that  it 
enjoined  upon  him  to  persecute  Christians,  the  Jewish 
defenders  were  hit  in  their  most  vulnerable  spot.  One 
party, — the  rationalistic  followers  of  Maimonides, — 
headed  by  Don  Astruc  Levi,  denied  the  authority  of  the 
Talmud  in  all  those  agadistic  passages  which  could  be 
distorted  to  afford  such  accusations ;  the  other,  and  more 


JOSEPH   ALBO   AND   HIS   TIME  143 

Orthodox  party,  headed  by  Joseph  Albo,  would  not  give 
up  a  particle  of  the  authority  of  the  Talmud ;  they  ac- 
knowledged the  full  authority  of  every  word,  gave  a  more 
correct  interpretation  of  the  offensive  passages,  and 
begged  not  to  be  judged  by  the  letter  but  by  the  spirit  of 
the  ordinances.  Sixty-eight  sessions  were  held  in  all,  and 
sixty-eight  times  were  the  defenders  of  Judaism,  so  to  say, 
stretched  upon  the  spiritual  rack.  When  nothing  could 
break  their  spirit,  when  the  logic  of  the  Gospel  could  not 
find  access  to  their  dull  heads,  when  even  the  number  of 
forcibly  converted  Jews,  who  were  imported  from  all 
parts  of  the  country  to  testify  publicly  in  the  hall  where 
the  sessions  were  held  of  the  glorious  results  which  the 
newly  acquired  religion  had  yielded  them,  could  not 
induce  the  stubborn  representatives  to  take  a  similar 
step,  the  pope  dismissed  the  convention,  hurling  bulls 
and  decrees  against  the  Jews,  in  his  anger,  which  would 
have  extirpated  them  had  they  ever  been  enforced ;  but 
before  they  became  laws,  Pope  Benedict  was  deposed  by 
the  council  of  Constance,  and  died  in  the  small  town 
of  Peniscola. 

Let  us  now  drop  the  curtain,  and  let  us  ask  the  ques- 
tion, whether  these  "  good  old  times  "  were  indeed  such 
that  we  should  sigh  for  them,  or  whether  we  should  feel 
obliged  to  accept  as  binding  the  religious  opinions  and 
views  of  our  ancestors,  which  had  been  the  fruits  of  a  de- 
pressed spirit,  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  bigotry, 
the  fanaticism,  and  the  intolerance  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. Were,  indeed,  the  best  men  of  that  period,  men  like 
Don  Benveniste  Astruc  and  Joseph  Albo,  whom  we  may 
admire  as  dauntless  champions  of  their  faith,  so  much 
more  learned  than  we  are,  so  much  nearer  the  truth,  so 
much  less  prejudiced,  that  we  should  accept  their  decisions 


144  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

as  binding  ?  And  if  they  are  no  authority  for  us,  why 
should  any  previous  or  later  generation  be  selected  by  us 
for  spiritual  guidance  ?  Let  us  understand  it  well ;  they 
have  been  the  children  of  their  time,  as  had  been  their 
ancestors  before  them,  and  their  children  after  theiji ;  as 
are  we,  and  as  our  children  will  be  after  us.  They  have 
formed  their  own  opinion;  they  have  selected  from  the 
past  what  seemed  plausible  to  them,  and  have  recoined 
it  with  the  stamp  of  their  time  ;  whatever  they  did  not 
care  for  they  rejected.  Exactly  the  same  do  we :  what- 
ever of  old  principles  can  stand  the  test  of  our  scrutiny, 
and  gives  us  satisfaction,  we  recoin  for  our  use,  pressing 
upon  it  the  die  of  our  age  ;  whatever  does  not  agree  with 
our  views,  customs,  and  experiences  we  abandon  and 
abolish. 

The  fifteenth  century  is  also  remarkable  for  the  changes 
to  which  Jewish  principles  have  yielded. 

We  are  almost  always  correct  when  we  conclude  that  a 
book  which,  at  its  time,  had  a  wide  circulation,  and  had 
won  for  itself  a  lasting  renown,  is  expressive  of  the  cur- 
rent public  opinion  as  well  as  of  the  current  public  sen- 
timent. If  such  a  book  had  contained  nothing  else  than 
the  private  opinion  of  even  an  illustrious  author,  it 
would  not  have  survived  ;  it  would  have  been  lost  in  the 
sea  of  oblivion,  with  the  millions  of  other  individual 
fancies. 

Such  a  memorial,  from  which  we  may  glean  the  gen- 
eral drift  of  religious  thought  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, we  possess  in  a  book  written  by  Joseph  Albo, 
who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  foremost  champions 
for  the  Jewish  cause  at  the  religious  tournament  at  Tor- 
tosa;  he  called  it  "Sefer  Ikkarim,  or  the  Book  of  Prin- 
ciples." 


JOSEPH    ALBO    AND    HIS    TIMK  145 

Joseph  Albo  was  born  about  1380,  in  Monreal,  and  died 
about  1444,  in  Soiia.  We  know  very  little  of  him.  We 
know  that  he  conspicuously  took  part  in  the  disputation, 
that  in  consequence  of  it  he  was  obliged  to  leave  his  na- 
tive country;  that  he  was  a  skilful  physician  and  a  clever 
orator,  but  that  is  all.  We  know  him  mostly  by  his 
book,  which  has  still  a  hold  upon  our  present  generation, 
in  so  far  as  all  the  catechisms  used  in  our  Sunday-schools 
have  adopted  his  three  cardinal  doctrines,  and  that  they 
are  still  thought  by  many  to  circumscribe  Judaism. 
Even  the  Pittsburg  Convention,  composed  of  the  most 
radical  Jewish  rabbles  of  this  country,  embodied  Joseph 
Albo's  principles,  with  very  slight  alteratif)ns,  in  their 
platform.  They  are  the  belief  in  one  God,  the  belief  in  a 
divine  revelation,  and  the  belief  in  immortalit}'.  The 
condensation  of  Mairnonides'  thirteen  articles  of  creed  into 
three,  by  Albo,  amounts  to  little,  as  he  simply  unites 
several  articles  of  his  predecessor  under  one  head.  The 
remarkable  departure  of  ^Joseph  Albo  from  Maimonides  is 
the  motive  which  underlies- his  principles,  and  which  finds 
its  full  expression  in  the  third  article.  Judaism  had  so 
far  never  accepted  the  doctrine  of  immortality.  What- 
ever the  hopes  of  the  Israelites  might  have  been  in  re- 
•gard  to  future  existence,  the  biblical  writings  leave  us  in 
the  dark,  and  are  not  outspoken.  When  the  question  of 
immortality  was  discussed  for  the  first  time,  by  Pharisees 
and  Sadducees,  it  turned  solely  around  the  hypothesis  of 
bodily  resurrection.  Even  Maimonides  failed  to  settle 
the  question,  and  vacillated  between  a  resurrection  and 
an  ideal  immortality,  which  was,  in  point  of  fact,  anni- 
hilation. Christianity  had  been  compelled  by  necessity 
to  accept  the  doctrine  of  a  heaven  and  hell,  and  had 
preached  it  now  for  about  a  thousand  years.     The  Jews 


146  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

living  among  them  were  infected,  therefore,  with  similar 
ideas,  and  in  Albo  we  find  them  digested  and  reproduced 
in  Jewish  form.  He  is  the  first  Jewish  writer  who  claims 
that  the  great  aim  and  destiny  of  man  on  earth  are  to 
save  his  soul.  With  this  point  he  starts,  and  with  this 
point  he  ends  his  philosophy.  To  save  his  soul,  man  must 
not  only  do  the  right  thing,  but  his  motives,  too,  must  be 
pure.  He  must  have  faith,  he  must  believe.  Society 
could  establish,  and  among  pagans  it  had  established, 
excellent  laws  for  its  preservation,  but  man  could  never 
save  his  soul  by  merel}'  leading  a  righteous  life,  by  merely 
following  up  the  rules  which  society  had  laid  down  for  his 
conduct.  He  must  believe  in  God,  and,  in  consequence 
thereof,  that  God  has  made  known  his  will  to  man.  The 
Mosaic  law,  which  contained  613  ordinances,  was  not 
given  to  make  it  difficult  for  man  to  attain  his  salvation. 
On  the  contrary,  Albo  claimed  that  a  man  would  be 
saved  if  he  performed  only  one  of  them,  and  that  by  the 
greater  number  of  ordinances  he  had  gained  a  greater 
choice,  and  hence  an  easier  access  to  heaven.  This  queer 
interpretation  led  him  naturally  to  the  acceptation  of  sev- 
eral grades  of  happiness  ;  the  more  ordinances  a  man  had 
fulfilled,  the  greater  would  be  his  joys  in  heaven.  Albo 
found  it  difficult  to  prove  his  doctrine  of  immortality 
from  the  Bible  or  the  Talmud ;  but  so  strong  must  have 
been  the  popular  current  in  favor  of  an  adoption  of  such 
a  theory  that  his  most  distorted  and  absurd  quotations 
were  received  as  good  arguments.  A  still  greater  diffi- 
culty beset  his  way  when  he  endeavored  to  prove  that  the 
Jewish  law  was  valid  for  all  times,  and  could  neither  be 
abrogated  nor  replaced  by  a  new  dispensation,  such  as 
was,  for  instance,  the  Christian  or  Mohammedan  law.  He 
had  stated  before  that  God  had  given  his  law  on  several 


JOSEPH    ALBO    AND    HIS    TIME  147 

occasions  ;  first  to  Adam,  then  to  Noah,  then  to  Abra- 
ham, and  finally  to  Moses.  The  question,  therefore,  arose, 
why  could  God  not  have  revealed  a  new  law  to  some 
other  prophet,  for  example,  to  Jesus  or  to  Mohammed  ? 
Albo  endeavored  to  escape  the  snare  in  which  he  had 
caught  himself  through  the  following  loop-hole  :  God  had 
given  his  laws  to  Israel  directly  in  the  presence  of 
thousands  of  spectators ;  it  could  therefore  be  annulled 
only  by  a  similar  direct  revelation.  He  did  not  see  that 
he  thus  limited  the  whole  Mosaic  legislation  to  the  Ten 
Commandments,  which  both  Christians  and  Mohamme- 
dans recognized  as  valid.  Judaism  consisted,  so  Albo 
claimed,  of  two  parts,  creed  and  deed ;  and  either  one  was 
not  sufficient  to  save  a  man's  soul.  Creed  without  deed 
and  deed  without  creed  were  both  ineffective.  It  was  no 
wonder  that  thus  the  Christian  ideas  of  dogma,  sacra- 
ment, and  the  salvation  of  the  soul  as  a  consequence 
thereof,  should  have  found  or  forced  their  way  into  Juda- 
ism. You  may  as  well  hang  some  article  in  a  chimney 
and  ask  it  to  keep  itself  free  from  smoke,  or  to  expose  a 
piece  of  sugar  to  the  rain  and  demand  that  it  not  get 
damp  or  melt,  as  to  expect  that  Judaism,  surrounded  by 
the  waves  of  intolerant  and  ignorant  Christianity,  forced 
by  it  into  protracted  discussions  in  regard  to  its  points 
of  departure,  should  not  be  saturated  with  the  very 
ideas  against  which  it  contested.  Thousands  of  Spanish 
Jews  had  already  forsaken  the  standard  of  their  relig- 
ion, and  thousands  of  others  were  prepared  to  follow 
their  example.  A  few  more  years  and  Judaism  was 
destined  to  become  extinct  upon  the  Pyrenean  Pen- 
insula. 

The  final  catastrophe  which  overwhelmed  Judaism  in 
Spain  is  so  memorable  an  event,  not  alone  in  Jewish  but 


148  DISSOLVING  VIEWS 

in  general  history,  that  I  shall  offer  it  a  place  in  my 
"  Dissolving  Views."  My  next  picture  shall  therefore 
bring  before  you  the  sad  sight  of  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jews  from  Spain.'  As  its  central  figure  I  have  chosen 
Don  Isaac  Abrabanei. 


XII. 

DON  ISAAC    ABRABANEL  AND  HIS   TIME 

The  history  of  mankiud  is  by  no  means  a  book  the 
pages  of  which  have  always  been  kept  scrupulously  clean. 
All  the  great  events  in  the  life  of  the  colossus  called  man- 
kind have  been  accompanied  by  more  or  less  misery  and 
suffering  of  individuals ;  no  great  innovations  have  been 
ushered  into  the  world  wdthout  the  most  excruciating 
labor  pains,  or,  to  quote  the  words  of  Marat,  the  great  rev- 
olutionist of  the  last  century,  "  Revolutions  were  never 
perfumed  with  rose-oil."  It  almost  seems  as  if  historians 
had  found  nothing  worth  recording  in  the  life  of  the 
human  race  but  the  miseries  through  which  it  has  passed 
and  the  blunders  which  it  has  made,  for  as  you  turn  the 
pages  of  that  remarkable  book  you  are  treated  to  narra- 
tives either  of  the  one  or  the  other  kind,  and,  while  ample 
space  is  given  to  wars,  revolutions,  and  i)ersecutioiis,  to 
conquerers,  adventurers,  and  mart5a*s,  little  s[)ace  is 
granted  to  the  exposition  of  the  more  amiable  traits  of 
human  character.  Surprising  as  this  fact  may  appear,  it 
is  quite  natural  that  it  is  so.  We  forget  easily  the  good 
days  through  which  we  have  passed,  and,  as  a  rule,  we 
love  to  dwell  con'iplacenfly  up'on  the  misfortunes  which 
have  beset  our  way.  We  repeat  with  delight  narratives 
of  the  evil  days  wdiich  we  have  endured,  of  the  dangers 
from  which  we  have  been  rescued,  of  the  sicknesses  from 
which  we  have  recovered;  and  the  oftener  we  repeat  these 

149 


150  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

stories,  the  more  do  we  embellish  them  and  the  more  do 
we  enlarge  the  size  of  the  fact,  without  any  intent  to  fal- 
sify it.  To  capture  the  sympathy  and  gain  the  pity  of 
our  hearers,  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  to  show 
our  wisdom,  courage,  or,  if  nothing  else,  the  richness  of 
our  vital  resources,  we  paint  unconsciously  the  dangers 
which  have  surrounded  us  in  the  blackest  possible  colors ; 
and  thus  it  has  occurred  that  also  manl^ind,  considered  as 
one  great  individual,  has  recorded  rather  its  evil  days 
than  its  happy  ones.  Another  reason  for  this  peculiar  oc- 
currence is  that  we  are  quick  to  observe  wickedness,  but 
very  slow  to  recognize  virtue.  A  crime  committed  some- 
where is  not  only  minutely  lecurded  in  the  news  columns 
of  a  daily  paper,  but  the  facts  are  eagerly  read  and  still 
more  eagerly  discussed  by  the  public,  while  very  much 
less  attention  is  paid  to  the  good  that  is  constantly  prac- 
tised by  the  many.  Virtue  loves  secrecy,  though  it  need 
not  fear  publicity,  and  the  one  criminal  action  of  which 
we  occasionally  hear  is  a  hundred-fold  counterbalanced  by 
the  many  honorable  deeds  which  never  reach  our  notice. 
Historians  have  been  informed  of  tlie  evil  deeds  rather 
than  of  the  noble  actions  of  the  members  composing  human 
society,  and  thus  they  have  recorded  the  ones,  while  they 
have  failed  to  note  the  others,  just  as  our  newspapers  re- 
cord daily  the  crimes  perpetrated  in  the  community,  of 
which  they  keep  themselves  well  informed,  while  they 
pass  over  in  silence  all  the  honorable  actions,  of  which 
information  rarely,  if  ever,  reaches  the  editorial  sanctum. 
I  beg  of  you,  ray  friends,  to  keep  these  introductory  re- 
marks well  in  your  minds  that  you  may  better  follow  the 
drift  of  the  argument  which  I  shall  bring  forth  in  regard 
to  that  page  in  the  history  of  the  human  race  over  wliic'... 
so  to  say,  a  whole  inkstand   liad   been    emptied    v/liicii 


DON   ISAAC   ABRABANEL  AND   HIS   TIME  151 

presents  to  us  one  large  blot,  and  which  is  so  unredeema- 
bly  spoiled  that  not  even  an  effort  is  made  to  palliate  tlie 
crimes  recorded  thereupon  or  to  excuse  the  incriminated 
persons. 

The  horrors  of  the  Inquisition  and  of  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jews  from  Spain,  which  occurred  in  the  year  1492,  two 
days  previous  to  the  departure  of  Christopher  Columbus 
on  his  adventurous  'but  world-famed  voyage,  are  facts 
which  we  could  hardly  believe,  were  not  the  authentic 
proofs  of  their  reality  in  our  hands.  Whenever  that 
soiled  page  in  the  book  of  history  is  turned,  the  finger  of 
the  reader  touches  a  sore  spot  on  the  bodies  of  both  Jew- 
ish and  Christian  communities.  The  one  becomes  enraged, 
its  blood  boils  over  at  the  remembrance  of  the  undeserved 
and  pitiable  fate  that  overcame  its  ancestors,  a  fate  fol- 
lowed by  graver  consequences  tlian  that  which  drove  them 
from  their  native  soil  and  scattered  them  over  the  face  of 
the  earth  fourteen  hundred  years  before.  The  first  calam- 
ity had  broken  up  their  nationality,  the  second  crushed 
their  spirit  for  many  centuries.  The  other  party  stands 
aghast  and  covers  its  face  in  shame.  Christianity  would 
do  all  and  everything  could  it  tear  out  that  leaf  from  the 
book  of  history,  could  it  cleanse  the  blotted  page,  could  it 
undo  the  cruel  deed.  Alas !  the  inkstand  spilled  by  the 
fanaticism  of  Torquemada,  Ferdinand,  and  Isabella  has 
soiled  it  forever. 

On  account  of  this  soreness,  it  has  become  a  universal 
custom  for  Jews  to  assail  their  adversaries  with  great  fnry 
and  hurl  at  them  all  kinds  of  invectives  whenever  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Jews  from  Spain  is  discussed.  We  feel 
instinctively  that  here  we  stand  upon  impregnable  ground, 
that  the  other  side  is  so  much  in  the  wrojig  that  it  has  no 
means  of  defence ;  hence  our  courage  waxes.     There  is 


152  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

rarely  an  orator  or  preacher  who  will  treat  of  that  chap- 
ter of  history  without  indulging  in  the  strongest  language 
at  his  command,  and  whenever  or  wlierever  a  controversy 
between  a  Jew  and  a  Gentile  ensues  you  can  be  sure 
that,  while  the  one  will  dwell  upon  the  crucifixion  of  the 
Galilean,  the  other  will  throw  out  some  hints  in  regard 
to  the  Inquisition  ;  that  while  one  will  mention  Ananias 
and  Herod,  the  other  will  find  a  match  for  them  in  Tor- 
quemada,  Ferdinand,  and  Isabella.  All  such  contro- 
versies, however,  lead  to  nothing  ;  they  do  not  concern 
the  present,  nor  can  they  create  a  better  feeling  or  better 
understanding  between  the  two  contestants.  They  are  no 
arguments  for  or  against  the  one  or  the  other  religion.  If 
ever  the  advice  "  not  to  cry  over  spilt  milk  "  is  a  good  one, 
it  should  be  applied  in  regard  to  the  evil  deeds  with  which 
past  generations  may  have  sullied  tlieir  records.  We  are 
not  responsible  for  them.  As  little  as  we  could  be  held 
responsible  to-day  for  any  misdeed  for  which  our  ancestors 
some  thousand  years  ago  might  have  been  to  blame,  so 
little  is  the  present  Christian  church,  be  it  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  responsible  for  the  edicts  of  King  Ferdinand. 
In  all  such  and  similar  cases,  we  must  not  allow  ourselves 
to  be  misled  by  the  ire  of  even  a  well-meaning  orator,  but 
we  ought  to  learn  to  divest  all  such  events  of  the  addi- 
tions and  exaggerations  which  in  course  of  time  have 
crystallized  around  them.  The  student  of  history  must 
cast  all  prejudices  aside  before  he  enters  the  library  ;  he 
must  forget  that  he  has  some  theories  which  he  would 
like  to  establish  by  facts,  and  he  must  be  satisfied  to  ac- 
cept facts  as  they  stand,  even  if  they  run  counter  to  and 
upset  his  favorite  theories.  In  such  a  spirit  let  us  ex- 
amine the  woful  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Spanish 
Jews. 


DON   ISAAC   ABKABANEL  AND   HIS   TIME  153 

No  country  in  the  world  ever  had  a  more  diversified 
history  within  a  few  centuries  than  that  of  Spain.  A  Phoe- 
nician province,  it  became  incorporated  into  the  Roman 
empire  after  the  fall  of  Carthage.  A  rich  and  flourishing 
country,  it  was  one  of  the  first  to  be  overrun  by  the 
barbarians  and  also  one  of  the  first  which  became  rapidly 
Christianized.  But  scarcely  had  the  Goths  had  time  to 
develop  under  the  new  conditions,  or  the  Christian  religion 
to  establish  itself  upon  a  firm  basis,  when  the  Moors  con- 
quered the  land,  annihilated  Christianity,  and  within  a  few 
centuries  made  it  a  paradise  both  in  regard  to  useful  art 
and  to  spiritural  culture.  Christianity  was  wiped  out  as 
if  it  had  never  existed  there.  After  Charles  Martel  had 
won  the  battle  of  Tours,  the  Mohammedan  tide  began  to 
recede.  Step  by  step  Gallic  tribes  pressed  southward, 
bringing  with  them  the  cross,  which  in  former  ages  had 
ruled  over  Spain.  The  mongrel  population  which  had 
been  formed  by  marriages  between  Goths  and  Moors  were 
reconverted  to  Christianity,  but  they  were  a  most  dan- 
gerous element :  they  were  no  longer  the  Gothic  barba- 
rians they  had  been  when  Taric  conquered  the  land ;  they 
were  highly  cultured,  and  they  infused  the  church  with  a 
skepticism  which  threatened  to  become  dangerous  to  its 
existence.  Rome  felt,  therefore,  that  it  Vvas  called  upon 
to  stamp  out  the  fire  of  rationalism,  which  began  to  send 
up  pillars  of  smoke  and  was  threatening  a  general  confla- 
gration. The  Inquisition  was  to  perform  that  greiit  feat ; 
but  it  soon  learned  to  despair  of  the  result,  because  for 
every  skeptic  or  infidel  which  it  killed  on  the  rack  or 
burned  on  the  pyre  a  score  of  new  ones  arose.  Its  last 
hope  was  to  so  isolate  the  faithful  from  all  corrupting  in- 
fluences that  not  the  least  glimmer  of  light  should  ever 
reach  them.     The  last  Moorish  kingdom  was  finally  con- 


154  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

quered.  Granada  had  surrendered,  and  the  Moors  had 
either  emigrated  to  Africa  or  had  been  made  Christians. 
The  Jews,  who  are  said  to  have  lived  in  Spain  already 
in  the  pre-Roman  times,  had  passed  through  all  these 
changes;  they  had  preserved  their  religious  customs, 
though,  as  we  have  seen,  they  had  accommodated  them- 
selves to  the  times.  During  the  last  two  centuries  they 
had  been  tossed  about  like  a  ball  between  the  two  con- 
testants, the  advancing  northern  Christians  and  the  re- 
ceding southern  Moors.  A  great  many  of  them  had  allied 
themselves  to  the  conquerors  and  had  embraced  Chris- 
tianity, but  so  lax  had  they  been  in  their  allegiance  to  the 
church,  and  so  much  were  they  still  attached  to  their 
former  coreligionists,  that  they  were  not  only  suspected 
by  the  dignitaries  of  the  church  on  account  of  their  ra- 
tionalism but  feared  on  account  of  their  skeptical  tenden- 
cies. The  inquisitory  tribunal  felt,  therefore,  that 
Christianity  could  never  take  root  in  Spanish  soil  unless 
the  Maranos,  the  pseudo-Christians,  were  cut  loose  from 
the  Jews,  through  whose  influence  they  were  still  kept 
from  a  thorough  amalgamation  with  the  conquerors. 
Hence  the  desire  to  expel  them,  to  obtain  by  brute  force 
what  could  not  be  reached  by  arguments.  The  invaders 
had  been  ignorant  barbarians,  who,  though  they  exhibited 
great  martial  courage  and  genius,  were  lacking  in  the 
knowledge  of  arithmetic  as  well  as  in  the  knowledge  of 
the  laws  of  finance.  Of  all  the  laws  that  govern  society, 
these  are  the  most  intricate,  and  even  to-day,  though 
known  somewhat  better  than  before,  they  are  a  mystery 
to  many.  Great  financiers,  as  a  rule,  act  rather  by  inspi- 
ration and  financial  instinct  than  by  calculation.  This 
financial  instinct  had  evolved  through  natural  selection 
among    the    Jews   daring    many    generations.      It   was 


DON    ISAAC    ABUABA>iEL    AND    HIS    TIME  155 

wonderful  to  behold  how  the  money  would  flow,  as 
if  by  a  charm,  back  to  the  coffers  of  the  Jews  from 
which  it  was  taken,  how  the  Jews  witli  apparentlij  little 
bodily  exertion  would  obtain  the  means  to  live  in  greater 
luxury  than  their  masters.  It  was  entirely  overlooked 
that  the  Jew  worked  as  hard,  if  not  harder  than  his 
Christian  neighbor  ;  that  he  lived  more  frugally,  and  that 
the  finances  of  the  whole  country  were  left  to  his  man- 
agement because  the  Christian  invaders  did  not  under- 
stand how  to  control  them,  and  it  must  be  a  queer 
horse  who  would  stand  by  the  full  crib  without  getting 
fat  and  sleek.  So  little  understanding  had  the  Spanish 
grandees  of  finances  that  they  farmed  out  the  revenues  and 
taxes  from  which  the  government  was  to  be  supported; 
too  io-norant  and  too  lazv  to  collect  statistics  or  to  orp-an- 
ize  a  good  bureaucratic  machinery,  the}^  offered  the  in- 
come of  a  city  or  province  to  the  highest  bidder,  and  they 
were  pleased  when  tlie  Jews,  forming  syndicates,  would 
take  that  onerous  and,  as  they  considered  it,  disreputable 
business  off  their  hands.  The  Jew  became,  therefore, 
rich  ;  but  to  the  race  hatred,  to  the  ill  feeling  which  exists 
between  different  religions,  and  to  that  jealousy  which  the 
poor  most  a]wa3's  feel  towards  the  rich,  was  added  the 
dislike  wliich  ever}--  tax-payer  bears  against  the  tax-col- 
lector. People  are  alwaj^s  grumbling  when  they  are 
called  upon  to  pay  taxes,  and  they  rarely  think  it  a  crime 
to  deceive  the  state  in  the  payment  of  revenues  whenever 
a  good  opportunity  offers  itself. 

King  Ferdinand,  who  was  always  pinched  for  money, 
thought  that  he  would  improve  the  state  of  his  finances 
by  the  sequestration  of  the  wealth  which  the  Jews  were 
said  to  have  accumulated  during  centuries  of  toil  and 
labor.     Tlmt  his  pnlicy  was  ;i   mistaken  one,  that  he  was 


156  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

ignorant  of  that  very  first  financial  law,  that  money  is  of 
value  only  as  an  agent  of  exchange  between  commodi- 
ties, is  so  well  known  that  I  need  not  enlarge  upon  it. 
On  March  30,  1492,  he  issued  the  famous,  or  rather  infa- 
mous edict,  that  after  the  31st  of  July  no  Jew  should 
further  be  seen  upon  Spanish  soil.  It  is  a  lengthy  docu- 
ment, and  it  has  been  preserved  so  that  we  can  scrutinize 
it  to  the  letter,  but  what  do  we  find?  Were  the  Jews  to 
be  driven  from  the  country  on  account  of  any  immoral  or 
criminal  action  on  their  part?  Had  they  been  rude,  riot- 
ous, or  ungovernable?  Not  a  word  is  said  about  that,  not 
the  slightest  allusion  is  made  to  any  improper  or  unlawful 
conduct  on  their  part.  Were  they  accused,  as  they  were 
frequently  in  other  countries,  of  being  usurers  or  money- 
grabbers?  Not  with  a  word  does  King  Ferdinand  refer 
to  avarice  or  ill-gotten  wealth.  He  brings  only  one  accu- 
sation against  them,  and  upon  this  he  dwells  at  consider- 
able length.  Their  only  crime  was  that  they  opposed  the 
Catholic  faith,  that  they  induced  others  to  do  the  same, 
that  they  held  fast  to  the  laws  of  Moses,  that  they  se- 
duced others  to  join  them  in  their  religious  practices,  that, 
they  supplied  the  Maranos  with  unleavened  bread  or 
with  m^at  slaughtered  with  ceremonies,  that  they  in- 
structed them  in  the  Jewish  laws.  This  was  all  he  had 
to  say  against  them  and  what  he  offered  as  a  reason  for 
their  expulsion.  In  the  second  paragraph  of  the  edict 
he  allows  them  to  depart  in  peace  during  the  three 
months  given  to  them,  and  apparently  permits  them  to 
take  their  wealth  with  them.  A  clause,  however,  upsets 
his  good-will  and  shows  the  true  inwardness  of  his  plan. 
He  prohibits  them  to  export  gold,  silver,  jewels,  and  all 
such  articles  the  export  of  which  was  interdicted  before. 
Thus  they  were  not  allowed  to  take  anything  with  them. 


DON   ISAAC    ABRABANEL   AND   HIS   TIME  157 

In  tlie  third  paragraph  he  fiiuls  it  necessary  to  threaten 
with  the  severest  punislinieiit  all  those  of  liis  subjects  who 
should  aid,  protect,  or  assist  any  of  the  emigrants  after 
the  time  appointed  for  their  departure  had  elapsed.  Two 
days  of  grace  were  afterwards  added  to  the  three  months, 
so  that  the  Jews  left  Spain  on  August  2,  1492  (the  ninth 
Ab.,  the  day  upon  which  the  Temple  was  twice  de- 
stroyed) while  Columbus  set  sail  on  August  4  of  the 
same  year,  thus  unconsciously  preparing  a  future  asylum 
for  the  Jews. 

The  anecdote  has  been  frequently  rehearsed,  that  Isaac 
Abrabanel  had  made  to  the  king  the  tempting  offer  of  six 
hundred  thousand  crowns  if  he  would  revoke  his  cruel 
edict ;  that  Ferdinand  had  hesitated,  but  that  Torque- 
mada  had  appeared  at  the  critical  moment  before  the 
king  with  the  crucifix  in  his  hand :  "  Judas,"  he  ex- 
claimed, "  sold  his  Master  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver  ;  do 
you  sell  him  for  more  ?  "  And  so  the  king  was  hardened, 
and  the  decree  not  repealed.  The  misery  by  which  the 
departure  of  the  Jews  was  accompanied  has  also  been  nar- 
rated repeatedly,  with  all  the  exaggerations  which  gener- 
ally cluster  around  such  stories.  The  fact  remains  for  ns 
that  the  Jews  had  been  innocent,  that  their  sufferinof  was 
intense,  and  that  Ferdinand,  instead  of  gaining,  lost  by 
the  transaction  ;  but  there  are  several  i)oints  which  we 
ought  not  to  overlook,  and  which,  though  they  do  not 
palliate  the  crime,  reduce  its  apparent  enormity. 

With  the  exception  of  some  ruffians,  the  people  of  Spain 
do  not  seem  to  have  been  in  sympathy  with  the  king's 
decrees.  Although  the  Jews  lingered  to  the  last  day,  they 
were  not  molested  by  the  people.  Would  it  have  become 
necessary  to  threaten  with  punishment  of  the  severest 
kind  the  one  who  would  aid  the  Jews,  if  the  pcojtle  liad 


InS  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

been  opposed  to  them?  The  sufleriiig  of  the  emigrants 
began  after  they  had  left  their  native  country.  The 
king's  edict  prohibited  the  carrying  away  of  gold,  silver, 
and  jewels ;  but  still,  we  are  informed  that  the  rich  among 
the  Jews  assisted  the  poor  ones,  that  they  had  mone}^  to 
pay  their  passage  on  ships,  that  they  paid  for  the  permit 
of  settling  temporarily  in  Portugal,  and  it  is  quite  sure 
that  no  domicile  would  have  been  found  for  any  one  of 
them  unless  he  had  something  to  begin  with.  Abrabanel, 
who  emigrated  to  Naples,  did  not  live  there  as  a  poor 
man.  How  could  all  this  have  been  done  without  the 
connivance  and  the  good-will  of  the  inhabitants  ?  If  it  is 
true  that,  as  most  historians  agree,  three  hundred  thou- 
sand persons  were  exiled,  how  is  it  that  they  did  not  rise 
in  riot?  They  could  have  mustered  quite  an  army,  they 
could  have  drawn  assistance  from  the  Moors,  who  still 
bewailed  the  loss  of  Granada,  and,  as  there  was  a  chival- 
rous spirit  among  them,  how  is  it  that  the  whole  affair 
ran  off  so  peacefully,  that  the  outrage  committed  against 
such  laige  numbers  did  not  make  a  greater  stir  than  if  a 
flock  of  sheep  were  driven  from  one  field  into  another? 
Three  hundred  thousand  persons  are  no  small  concern. 
Were  there,  indeed,  enough  ships  in  all  the  Spanish  sea- 
ports at  that  time  to  convey  even  sixty  thousand  people 
to  other  countries  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  dimensions 
of  the  expulsion  have  been  cut  out  of  whole  cloth.  It 
must  have  been  neither  so  large  as  it  is  made  out  to  have 
been,  and,  let  us  believe,  not  so  cruel  as  the  description 
of  the  sufferers  make  it.  A  continuous  pressure  of  the 
Christians  may  have  forced  a  great  many  Jews  into  exile, 
and  may  have  driven  a  still  greater  number  into  the  bosom 
of  the  Church  ;  it  is  still  more  probable  that  this  pressure 
was  felt  more  oppressively  at  one  time  than  at  another, 


DON    ISAAC    ABRABANEL    AND    HIS   TIME  150 

and  that  at  that  memorable  occasion  a  greater  number  of 
Jews  left  the  inliuspitublc  jjeninsuhi  than  either  before  or 
later ;  but  the  edict  of  Ferdinand,  cruel  as  it  was,  must 
have  had  the  fate  of  many  other  such  edicts,  which  were 
hurled  before  and  afterwards  against  our  unfortunate 
ancestors,  viz.,  that  it  was  never  carried  out  to  the  full 
extent  which  it  had  in  view.  We  have  had  lately  a  simi- 
lar experience,  which  seems  almost  incredible  in  our  age. 
Similar  edicts  have  been  promulgated  against  the  Jews 
not  only  by  the  Russians,  who  are  looked  u[)on  still  as 
semi-barbarians,  but,  what  is  still  more  surprising,  by  the 
Germans,  who  pride  themselves  upon  being  the  most  en- 
lightened nation  upon  the  European  continent.  A  large 
number  of  Jews  have  suffered  from  them,  it  is  true ;  and 
when  they  tell  their  doleful  stories,  they  sound  similar  to 
those  written  by  Abrabanel :  but  the  number  of  exiles 
comprises  only  a  small  fraction  in  proportion  to  those 
who  are  still  living  at  home  in  spite  of  the  decrees  ; 
neither  does  the  haste  in  which  many  of  the  Russian  emi- 
grants returned  to  their  native  country,  when  an  oppor- 
tunity was  given  to  them,  show  that  the  treatment  which 
they  had  received  was  so  unbearable.  This  should  not 
weaken  the  enormity  of  the  crime  committed  by  King 
Ferdinand  ;  it  is  inmiaterial  whether  the  sufferers  were 
few  or  whether  they  were  many,  the  motives  and  inten- 
tions of  the  edict  are  infamous  ;  but  we  must  not  boil 
over  in  rage,  and  should  reduce  facts  to  their  real  pro- 
portions. Whether  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  Spain 
was  instantaneous  or  gradual,  it  broke  the  spirit,  not  only 
of  the  exiles,  but  of  all  Jews,  wherever  they  lived.  Rea- 
son, furthermore,  was  suppressed  for  some  time,  and  the 
night  of  ignorance  began  to  fall  heavily  all  over  Europe. 
About  this  time  the  art  of  printing  was  invented.     The 


1B0  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

Church  was  greatly  in  fear  of  that  "  black  and  devilish 
art,"  from  which  it  forebode  no  good,  and  it  attempted  to 
destroy,  at  the  last  moment,  all  such  documents  as  could 
show  the  falsity  of  its  claims.  The  Hebrew  Bible,  the 
Talmud,  and  Hebrew  books  in  general  were  greatly 
feared.  Wherever  and  whenever  the  Church  could  get 
possession  of  them,  it  destroyed  them  unmercifully,  and  if 
it  had  not  been  for  some  Christian  students,  who  valued 
truth  more  than  religion,  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  scrap 
of  all  that  grand  literature  would  now  be  in  existence. 

I  have  yet  to  give  you  the  biograjihy  of  Isaac  Abra- 
banel ;  of  the  man  who,  a  second  Jeremiah,  had  seen  and 
lived  through  all  the  miseries  which  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jews  from  Spain  had  brought  upon  them.  Don  Isaac 
Abrabanel  was  born  in  Lisbon,  in  the  year  1437.  His 
family  prided  itself  upon  having  descended  in  a  direct  line 
from  King  David,  a  claim  against  which  nobody  raised  a 
voice  at  that  time.  His  grandfather,  Samuel  Abrabanel, 
had  accepted  the  Christian  faith,  during  a  time  of  perse- 
cution, but  he  had  returned  to  Judaism  as  soon  as  cir- 
cumstances permitted  him  to  do  so.  The  whole  family 
was  talented ;  his  father,  Judah  Abrabanel,  had  already 
been  the  financial  agent  of  a  Portuguese  prince.  King 
Alphonso  V.  intrusted  Isaac  with  the  management  of  his 
finances,  and  througli  his  position  he  became  intimately 
connected  with  the  nobility  of  the  country,  and,  through 
bonds  of  friendship,  allied  with  Fernando  de  Braganza. 
Unfortunately,  King  Alphonso  died,  and  his  son,  Joao  II., 
inherited  the  throne  of  his  father,  thougli  not  the  confi- 
dence which  the  latter  had  placed  in  Isaac  Abrabanel. 
Wishing  to  get  rid  of  his  nobles,  whose  independence  was 
a  thorn  in  his  eyes,  he  caused  the  Duke  de  Braganza  to 
be  arrested,  to  be  tried  for  high  treason,  and  to  be  decap- 


DON   ISAAC    ABUABANEL    AND    HIS   TIME  lt'>l 

itated.  Abrabanel,  who  had  been  on  the  most  intimate 
terms  with  the  deceased,  was  also  suspected ;  he  was  in- 
vited to  attend  the  court,  but,  being  warned  in  time,  lie 
escaped  the  snare  by  immediate  flight.  He  removed  to 
Toledo,  in  Spain,  and,  though  he  had  lost  the  bulk  of  his 
fortune,  he  was  received  with  great  honors  by  the  Jews 
of  the  place,  and  admitted  into  partnership  by  Abraham 
Senjor. 

During  a  few  years  Abrabanel  enjoyed  the  happiness 
of  a  peaceful  life,  writing  commentaries  to  tlie  books  of 
Joshua,  Judges,  and  Samuel,  but  in  1484  he  was  called  to 
the  court  of  Fernando,  the  King  of  Spain,  who  intrusted 
him  with  the  management  of  his  finances,  which  then  were 
in  chaotic  disorder.  He  succeeded  so  well,  during  the 
eight  years  in  which  he  held  office,  that  the  king  could 
successfully  finish  his  campaign  against  the  Moors,  but  it 
seems  he  must  have  been  unable  to  curb  the  influence  of 
Torquemada,  and  that  he  was  kept  in  the  dark  until  the 
last  moment  in  regard  to  the  edict  which  banished  the 
Jews  from  Spain.  Even  after  the  decree  was  issued 
Abrabanel  had  access  to  the  royal  pair.  Until  the  very 
last  day  of  his  departure,  it  was  expected  that  he  would 
turn  Christian,  as  did  his  friend  Abraham  Senjor.  Abra- 
banel must  have  disappointed  the  king  by  preferring  the 
exile  ;  still,  the  royal  pair  did  not  place  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  their  former  favorite.  He  went  to  Naples  and  ar- 
lived  there  unmolested,  long  before  the  first  exiles  reached 
that  place.  He  was  kindly  received  by  the  king,  and  im- 
mediately appointed  manager  of  his  finances.  Through 
his  intervention  and  through  the  favor  which  he  found 
with  the  king,  some  of  his  compatriots  were  allowed  to 
settle  down  in  that  city.  It  is  not  known  why  he  left 
hospitable  Naples,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  he  died  in  Venice, 


Ifi2  DISSOLVING  VIEWS 

«> 

in  1509,  leaving  to  posterity  many  valuable  documents  in 
regard  to  the  events  of  his  adventuresome  life. 

My  next  lecture  shall  not  treat  of  any  remarkable  Jew- 
ish person  ;  quite  on  the  contrarj^,  its  heroes  shall  be 
Reuchlin,  a  Christian  scholar  of  great  European  renown, 
and  Pfefferkorn,  a  Jewish  apostate.  The  scene  will  be 
shifted  from  the  borders  of  the  river  Ebro  to  those  of  the 
river  Rhine,  and  it  will  contain  a  part  of  the  history 
which  preceded  the  great  religious  revolution  called  the 
Reformation,  which  split  Christianity  into  two  sects,  the 
Catholics  and  Protestants. 


XIII. 

REUCHLIN   AND   PFEFFERKOEN 

In  the  course  of  my  lectures,  I  have  had,  so  far,  little 
occasion  to  speak  of  the  condition  of  the  Jews  in  countries 
which  were  exclusively  Christian.  We  have  concerned 
ourselves  mostly  with  the  development  of  Jewish  thought 
as  it  took  place  in  the  east,  and  later  on  in  western  coun- 
tries under  Mohammedan  influence.  The  reason  is  obvi- 
ous. Culture  had  been  confined  to  these  countries  alone ; 
and  although  Christianity  had  paved  the  way,  its  progress 
towards  the  north  had  been  rather  slow\  The  Jew,  fol- 
lowing the  light  of  culture,  arrived,  therefore,  in  northern 
countries  much  later,  and  began  there  to  develop  at  a 
time  when  his  coreligionists  iu  southern  or  south-eastern 
countries  had  reached  tiie  philosophical  zenith. 

The  Jews  had  arrived  in  Germany  rather  late :  some 
say  that  Jewish  colonists  had  settled  on  the  borders  of 
the  river  Rhine  immediately  after  the  Roman  conquest  of 
these  territories,  but  that  assertion  cannot  be  proven ;  it 
has  its  origin  in  the  desire  of  the  German  Jews  to  exoner- 
ate themselves  from  their  participation  in  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  They  opposed  the  silly  accusation 
brought  against  them  by  the  Christians,  that  they  had 
murdered  their  Saviour,  by  the  equally  silly  claim  that,  no 
matter  what  the  Jews  in  Jerusaleiu  might  have  done, 
their  own  ancestors  had  been  innocent  of  it,  because  they 
had  been  at  that  time  already  residents  of  Germany  and 

168 


164  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

had  taken  no  part  in  the  proceedings.  In  fact,  we  do 
not  find  Jews  in  Germany  before  tlie  ninth  century,  and 
even  tlien  tliey  were  few  in  number.  Tlie  main  reason 
for  tlieir  absence  from  tliis  region  was  that  the  Germans, 
though  partly  Christianized,  were  not  yet  debarbarized. 
The  condition  of  tlie  Jews  in  Germany  from  the  moment 
we  meet  with  them  there  was  a  peculiar  one.  The  Ger- 
man emperors,  claiming  to  be  the  rightful  successors  of 
the  Roman  Ctesars  and  calling  themselves  Roman  empe- 
rors, considered  the  Jews  as  their  private  property.  Ves- 
pasian, so  they  argued,  had  conquered  Judea  and  had 
made  the  Jews  captives  ;  to  them  as  his  sole  heirs  did, 
therefore,  their  descendants  belong,  as  the  child  of  a 
slave  would  belong  as  rightful  property  to  his  master. 
Ignorant  in  financial  matters,  they  used  the  Jews  as  a 
medium  through  which  to  collect  an  income  for  private 
or  public  purposes.  A  part  of  this  power  was,  of  course, 
delegated  to  the  host  of  dukes,  barons,  and  counts  who 
then  formed  the  substance  of  the  German  government ; 
but  the  Jews  of  Germany  stood,  in  all  cases,  under  the 
protection  and  regulation  of  the  emperor.  Under  such  a 
degrading  servitude,  no  originality  could  be  expected  of 
them ;  they  lived  spiritually  hy  the  scraps  which  fell  from 
the  table  of  their  southern  brethren,  and  their  inclina- 
tions verged  rather  towards  the  acceptation  of  the  super- 
stitious than  towards  rationalism.  The  Cabalah  found 
most  fertile  ground  among  German  Jews.  Barbarous 
and  ignorant  as  were  the  inhabitants  of  Germany,  so  was 
also  their  newly  acquired  Christianity;  no  superstition 
was  too  crude  for  the  German  believer.  But  all  this  was 
to  be  changed ;  the  superstitious  and  barbarous  Germans 
were  destined  to  become  the  most  rational  and  most  cult- 
ured nation   of  the  European  continent ;    several  occur- 


KEUCHLIN    AND    PFEFFEKKORN  165 

rences  which  happened  about  this  time  brought  this  con- 
dition about. 

The  ignorant  and  fanatical  Germans  had  been  the  most 
zealous  champions  of  the  Crusades ;  they  had  plunged 
heart  and  soul  into  that  campaign,  and  the  German  princes 
were  the  last  to  withdraw  from  the  unsuccessful  enter- 
prise. Though  defeated  by  the  Moliammedans,  though 
almost  depopulated  by  the  conscription  of  able-bodied 
men,  which  had  drained  the  country  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years,  they  still  gained  in  the  end.  If  they  had 
not  conquered  Jerusalem  the  golden,  they  had  brought 
home  at  least  something  that  was  of  no  less  value,  —  they 
had  brought  home  culture.  They  had  learned  that  there 
was  a  world  beyond  the  limits  of  their  country',  much 
more  beautiful,  more  highly  cultivated  than  theirs,  and 
that  there  were  things  worth  knowing  besides  their  cate- 
chism, of  which  they  knew  miglity  little  ;  their  eyes  had 
been  opened,  they  first  began  to  dream  and  then  to  think. 
What  they  needed,  and  could  not  yet  produce,  were 
teachers  who  should  show  them  the  nature  of  all  the 
tilings  they  had  seen  in  foreign  lands,  and  tliis  supply 
came  to  them,  so  to  say,  over  night.  The  Turks,  conquer- 
ing Constantinople  in  tlie  middle  of  tlie  fifteenth  century, 
had  made  an  end  to  tlie  last  remnants  of  Rome's  former 
glory,  but  at  the  same  time  they  scattered  into  all  direc- 
tions the  inhabitants  of  the  Greek  empire.  These  took 
with  them  the  stores  of  culture  and  knowledge  whicli  had 
lain  buried  in  the  provinces  of  the  Graico-Koman  em- 
pire. The  exiled  Greeks  became  the  teachers  of  western 
and  north-western  Europe.  Tliey  brouglit  with  tliem  the 
knowledge  of  the  classics,  and  a  new  world  was  opened 
to  the  Cliristian  inhabitants  of  France,  Germany,  and 
England,  through  the  literature  of  that  grand  past.     S<t 


166  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

far  they  had  been  informed  only  of  the  miraculous  occur- 
rences narrated  in  the  New  and  Old  Testament ;  now 
they  began  to  read  Homer,  Herodotus,  Livy,  Tacitus, 
Cicero,  down  to  Lucian.  What  a  world  of  new  ideas  I 
Tlie  Gospels  vanished  by  their  side,  and  comparisons  with 
the  fables  of  Greek  invention  showed  to  the  healthy  mind 
of  the  young  scholar  their  improbability.  Skepticism 
arose,  and  it  was  that  very  skepticism  which  the  church 
attempted  to  suppress  through  the  horrors  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, forgetting  entirely  that  even  the  highest  church 
dignitaries  were  infected  with  it.  Can  skepticism  and 
heresy  rise  to  a  higher  degree  than  in  Pope  Leo  X.,  the 
head  of  Christendom,  who  dared  to  write  down  in  cool 
blood  the  following  sentence  :  "  Quantum  nobis  nostrisque 
ilia  de  Christo  fabula  ju-ofuerit  omnibus  saiculis  notum 
est "  ?  "  It  is  well  known  how  much  we  and  ours  have 
profited  during  all  these  centuries  by  that  fable  about 
Christ."  Max  Miiller  is  correct  when  he  says  that  before 
you  think  you  must  have  words  with  which  to  think. 
Philology  and  not  theology  is  the  stepping-stone  to  cult- 
ure. No  man  can  rise  to  the  higher  grades  of  culture 
unless  he  understands  at  least  two  languages.  The  zeal- 
ous pupil  had  now  found  a  teacher ;  he  began  to  study 
languages  with  him,  and  as  a  consequence  he  became  a 
rational  thinker. 

The  first  fruits  of  the  forbidden  tree  of  knowledge 
became,  however,  private  propert3^  They  were  taken 
by  the  few  who  had  the  means  of  cultivating  them  ;  the 
masses  had  not  yet  tasted  them,  and  the  educated  classes 
took  good  care  not  to  let  them  know  what  they  knew. 
While  inwardly  they  were  skeptics  and  infidels,  they 
made  neither  by  word  nor  sign  show  of  it,  and  performed 
more  promptly  and  scrupulously  than  ever  the   ceremo- 


REUCHLIN   AND   PFEFFERKORN  167 

nies  of  the  cliurch  in  which  they  no  longer  believed.  But 
this,  too,  was  to  be  changed  soon.  A  German  silver- 
smith invented  the  art  of  printing,  which  did  away  for- 
ever with  the  tedions  and  expensive  pi'ocess  of  copying 
books  by  hand.  The  types  once  set  up,  the  book  could 
be  reprinted  as  often  as  one  chose,  at  but  little  higher 
cost  than  tlie  price  of  the  paper  upon  which  it  was 
printed.  Books  became  now  cheap.  The  masses  learned 
how  to  read,  and  their  eyes  were  opened.  They  held  in 
their  hands  the  key  to  the  wonderful  garden  of  knowl- 
edge, and  needed  no  longer  to  scale  the  walls.  The  press 
was,  however,  as  yet  a  dangerous  toy.  The  veneration  in 
which  people  were  accustomed  to  hold  written  books  was 
transferred  to  printed  books.  Books  were  considered 
to  contain  nothing  but  the  truth,  or  at  least  to  teach 
something  worth  knowing.  He  who  had  anything  to 
communicate  could  now  bring  it  to  the  notice  of  the 
public  by  print,  and  like  wildfire  his  thoughts  would 
spread,  no  matter  whether  they  were  good  or  evil, 
whether  what  he  said  was  true  or  untrue.  A  man's 
character  could  be  easily  defamed  and  soiled  by  slander, 
and  there  was  no  recourse  to  be  taken.  Whatever  ap- 
peared in  print  was  considered  to  be  tcue  ;  and  the  more 
scandalous  a  book  was,  the  more  eagerly  was  it  read  b}' 
the  masses,  the  greater  were  its  circulation  and  its  evil 
effects.  The  new  invention  had  not  yet  been  sufficiently 
tested.  The  expedient  of  a  censor  or  of  a  libel  suit  had 
not  yet  occurred  to  the  sufferers,  and  they  thought  they 
could  fight  the  new  enemy  with  the  old  weapons,  as  the 
knights  of  eld  tried  to  protect  themselves  against  the  fire 
of  musketry  with  their  old-fashioned  shields.  They  tried 
to  remove  the  evil,  or  what  they  called  evil,  by  burning 
books;   but   while    one  cart-load  was  destroyed   by   the 


168  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

flames,  the  press  was  busy  producing  new  ones.  The 
new  art  had  come  to  stay,  and  could  not  be  friglitened 
away  by  fire  or  smoke. 

The  interest  which  scholars  had  taken  in  languages  did 
not  end  with  Greek  and  Latin ;  they  began  to  hunger  for 
more,  and  as  they  were  constantly  hearing  and  reading  of 
the  Jews,  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  and  of  the  Talmud,  some 
began  to  manifest  a  lively  interest  in  these  books.  The 
Jews  were  living  among  them,  and  could  teach  them,  and 
scholars  would  clandestinely  visit  the  Jewish  quarters  to 
study  Hebrew.  If  Greek  and  Roman  literature  had 
made  skeptics  of  the  Christians,  Jewish  literature  did  it 
in  a  still  higher  degree.  A  short  acquaintance  with  the 
original  showed  them  the  absurdity  of  the  Christian 
claims  and  the  falsifications  which  had  crept  into  the 
Vulgata,  the  only  translation  of  the  Bible  in  their  hands. 
The  church  began  to  feel  the  ground  sliaking  under  its 
feet,  and  the  Dominican  monks,  who,  through  their 
organization,  were  all-powerful  at  that  time,  felt  instinc- 
tively that  something  must  be  done  to  stop  the  spread  of 
the  infection.  The  Jewish  literature,  which  could  now 
be  read  by  every  one,  must  be  destroyed  before  too  many 
volumes  were  at  hand.  They  desired  that  all  Jewish 
books  should  be  collected  and  publicly  burned. 

In  Cologne  they  had  their  principal  seat,  an  inquisitory 
tribunal,  and  from  here  the  blow  should  be  dealt.  Had 
the  idea  occurred  to  them  a  hundred  years  sooner,  they 
mio-ht  have  been  successful,  but  now  it  was  too  late.  As 
a  handle  to  their  contrivance  they  chose  a  JeAvish  apos- 
tate, John  Pfefferkorn.  He  was  ah  ignoramus  of  the 
first  water,  who  had  left  his  home,  Moravia,  to  avoid  pun- 
ishment for  theft.  To  better  his  condition  he  had  turned 
Christian,  and  as  a  reward  for  his  apostasy  he  had  been 


REUCHLIN    AND    PFEFFERKORN  169 

appointed  to  some  petty  office  in  the  nuinicipal  govern- 
ment of  Cologne.  After  several  inflammatory  pamphlets 
had  been  printed  in  his  name,  and  had  been  peddled  out 
by  him  and  his  wife,  all  to  the  effect  that  the  Jews 
refused  so  stubbornly  to  accept  Christianity  on  account 
of  their  books,  and  that  these  books  contained  blas- 
phemies against  Jesus  and  maledictions  against  Chris- 
tians, he  was  sent  with  a  petition  to  the  German  Emperor 
Maximilian,  praying  that  the  Jews  should  be  ordered  to 
deliver  iTp  all  their  books  at  an  appointed  day  to  be 
destroyed  by  fire.  While  the  Dominican  inquisitor 
Hoogstraten,  and  his  aid,  Ortuin  Gratius,  thought  that 
such  an  accusation  by  a  Jew  against  Jews  -would  have 
greater  weight  with  the  emperor,  the  astute  Pfefferkorn 
undertook  the  mission  partly  fronl  hatred  toward  his 
former  brethren,  partly  in  the  hope  of  making  money  out 
of  them.  He  was  sure  they  would  offer  him  great  bribes 
for  the  preservation  of  at  least  some  of  the  books,  without 
which  they  could  not  exist.  The  emperor,  too  busy  in 
the  field  to  give  attention  to  theological  affairs,  gave  the 
desired  permit.  Pfefferkorn  returned  with  it  in  all  haste, 
and  began  the  experiment  first  of  all  in  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main,  well  knowing  that  the  Jews  of  that  city  were  rich 
and  possessed  plenty  of  books.  By  force  of  the  imperial 
edict  he  closed  their  sjniagogue  on  September  28  in  the 
year  1509,  and  had  their  houses  searched  after  the  pro- 
scribed volumes. 

The  Jew^s,  in  their  despair,  appealed  to  the  archbishop  of 
Mayence  for  aid,  and  also  desj^atched  a  messenger  to  the 
emperor  with  a  counter-petition,  claiming  that,  whereas 
religious  liberty  had  been  granted  to  them,  it  was  a 
breach  of  justice  to  rob  them  of  their  books,  which  con- 
tained nothing  that  was  harmful  to  the   prince  or  to  the 


170  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

country.  The  archbishop  stopped  the  proceedings  at 
once,  demanding  time  until  an  answer  from  the  emperor 
could  be  obtained.  The  Jews,  on  their  part,  did  all  in 
tlieir  might  through  clever  lobbyists  to  change  Maximil- 
ian's mind,  which  was  not  difficult,  as  he  himself  cared 
little  about  the  whole  matter.  His  answer,  therefore,  was 
that  a  committee  should  be  appointed  to  examine  the 
books,  and  their  verdict  should  settle  the  matter.  Among 
the  authorities  who  were  to  pass  judgment  was  Reuchlin, 
a  judge  of  the  supreme  bench,  one  of  the  greatest  and 
most  renowned  scholars  then  living  in  Germany.  Reuch- 
lin was  born  in  Pforzhim,  in  the  year  1455.  He  had  risen 
to  the  high  position  he  held  on  account  of  his  profound 
scholarship.  At  the  court  of  the  emperor  he  had  met 
with  a  learned  Jew,  Jacob  Loans,  by  whom  he  was  in- 
structed in  the  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  language. 
So  great  was  his  zeal  to  master  that  language  that  he 
would  sometimes  pay  ten  florins  for  the  explanation  of 
some  difficult  passage.  The  more  he  read,  the  more 
highly  he  became  interested  in  what  he  called  "the 
Jewish  truth,"  and  he  advocated  the  establishment  of 
Hebrew  chairs  in  the  universities.  He  even  wrote  a 
Hebrew  grammar.  The  Dominicans  had  for  a  long  time 
suspected  and  distrusted  him,  and  they  had  looked  with 
little  favor  upon  his  endeavors  to  sj)read  a  knowledge  of 
facts  which  they  were  bound  to  suppress. 

Reuchlin  was  nearing  his  sixtieth  year  when  the  king's 
mandate  was  brought  to  him.  Although  he  had  been  the 
friend  of  some  of  the  Jews,  and  althougli  he  loved  the 
Hebrew  language,  he  was  3^et  too  much  a  child  of  his 
time  to  be  a  friend  of  the  Jews  as  a  class.  He  shared 
nil  the  prejudices  of  his  time  against  them ;  still,  he  did 
not  care  to  act  in  hostility  against  the  writings  which 


KEUCHLIN    AND    PFEFFERKORN  171 

he  loved  so  well.  As  a  lawj^er  it  was  not  difficult  for  him 
to  detect  a  flaw  in  the  mandate  of  the  emperor,  by  force 
of  which  he  declined  to  accept  the  nomination.  The 
Dominicans  did  not  rest ;  the  mistake  was  corrected,  and 
Reuchlin  had  to  pass  his  judgment  in  regard  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  Hebrew  literature  contained  things 
which  were  against  Christianity,  and  which  would  incrim- 
inate them  so  as  to  demand  their  destruction  by  fire. 
Within  a  few  weeks  Reuchlin  prepared  liis  answer.  He 
did  not  say  that  the  Jewish  books  did  not  contain  things 
that  were  harmful  to  Christianity,  but  he  wanted  them 
preserved  for  the  sake  of  science  ;  through  .the  errors 
contained  therein  the  Jews  should  be  convinced  of  the 
falsity  of  their  belief.  In  the  queerest  possible  manner 
he  endeavored  to  preserve  the  Hebrew  books  without 
appearing  to  be  a  poor  Christian.  In  one  passage  he 
said  that  the  emperor  had  as  little  right  to  take  away  the 
books  of  the  Jews  and  burn  them  as  he  would  have  to 
take  away  their  children,  declaring  books  to  be  the 
spiritual  children  of  the  nation.  In  another  passage  he 
considered  it  advisable  to  leave  the  Jews  their  books  for 
the  purpose  of  allowing  them  to  liave  something  to  quar- 
rel about  among  themselves ;  he  claimed  they  were  a 
quarrelsome  nation,  and  if  they  could  cease  to  dispute 
about  Talmudical  passages  they  would  begin  to  quarrel 
about  other  things.  Finally,  however,  he  allowed  liimself 
to  be  carried  away  by  his  humanity,  and  to  stammei"  out 
a  sentence  wliich  was  rather  advanced  for  his  time,  viz., 
that  the  Jews  were  human  beings,  and  had  equal  rights  with 
the  rest.  The  answers  of  the  other  committee-men  were, 
of  course,  unfavorable  to  the  Jews  ;  but  a  queer  thing  hap- 
pened. Pfefferkorn,  who  was  despatched  witli  the  docu- 
ments to  the  emperor,  had  the  audacity  to  break  the  seal 


172  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

and  open  Reiiclilin's  letter.  Finding  his  adverse  decision, 
he  communicated  it  to  the  Dominicans,  and,  with  their 
aid,  he  issued  a  pamphlet,  called  "  Der  Handspiegel '' 
("  The  Hand-Mirror  "),  in  which  he  not  only  thundered 
against  the  Jews,  but  also  against  Reuchlin,  accusing  him 
of  having  been  bribed  by  the  Jews.  This  pamphlet,  cir- 
culating in  thousands  of  copies,  touching  so  infamously 
the  honor  and  the  renown  of  a  man  held  in  so  high 
respect  by  both  scholars  and  laymen,  could  not  be  allowed 
to  remain  without  an  answer.  Eeuchlin  replied  to  it  in 
a  pamphlet,  called  "Der  Augenspiegel,"  in  which  he  un- 
covered the  character  of  Pfefferkorn,  and  that  of  the  party 
which  stood  behind  him ;  but  he  allowed  himself  to  be 
carried  away,  both  by  his  ire  and  by  his  humanity,  still 
further  than  in  his  document  favoring  the  preservation  of 
the  Jewish  books,  and  he  said  things  which  placed  his 
Christianity  in  quite  an  oblique  light.  The  publication 
of  lieuchlin's  pamphlet  caused  an  unprecedented  stir  all 
over  Germany.  While  the  intelligent  classes  sided  with 
Reuchlin,  the  Dominicans  threw  fire  and  brimstone  over 
him.  They  burnt  the  pamphlet  wherever  they  could  lay 
their  hands  on  it,  and  had  its  sale  interdicted  and  stopped 
in  many  places ;  some  of  his  own  friends,  too,  expressed 
themselves  adversely,  claiming  that  a  man  of  his  standing 
had  no  business  to  enter  into  a  dispute  with  a  converted  Jew, 
with  a  man  as  mean  and  contemptible  as  was  Pfefferkorn, 
and  they  censured  him  for  having  divulged  the  secrets  of 
the  educated  classes  to  the  ignorant  multitude.  They 
could  not  see  why  he  should  favor  the  Jews  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Christian  church.  The  emperor  kept  himself 
in  the  meantime  quite  neutral,  that  is,  if  we  can  call  it 
neutral  to  revoke  on  one  day  what  is  ordered  the -day 
before,  and  to  sanction  in  one  huur  a  nieasuie  to  cancel  it 


EEUCHI-IN    AND    PFEPFERKORN  173 

in  the  next.  But  what  is  more  remarkable  than  all  this 
was  that  now  Pfefferkorn  and  the  confiscation  of  the 
Jewish  books  were  entirely  dropped  in  the  presence  of 
the  new  development.  The  question  was  now,  what  to  do 
with  Reuchlin  and  his  pamphlet?  The  inquisitor  of 
Cologne  tried  at  first  to  intimidate  Reuchlin,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  it  fairly  well.  Reuchlin  was  ready  to  change 
many  of  his  hard  utterances,  and  to  take  back  many 
other  things  which  he  had  said,  but  when  Hoogstraten  de- 
m;  nded  that  he  stop  the  sale  of  his  book,  and  annul  the 
decision  which  he  had  passed  in  favor  of  the  Hebrew 
books,  Reuchlin,  as  an  honest  man,  could  not  and  would 
not  j^eld.  One  pamphlet  now  followed  the  other,  and 
the  fight  waxed  hotter  with  every  hour.  Hoogstraten 
resorted  at  last  to  his  most  dangerous  weapon  ;  he  sum- 
moned Reuchlin  before  the  inquisitory  tribunal  to  defend 
himself  against  some  alleged  heresy  contained  in  his 
"  Augenspiegel  "  ("  Mirror  for  the  Eye  "). 

At  the  appointed  day  Hoogstraten  and  his  friends  ap- 
peared before  the  tribunal  as  witnesses  against  the  de- 
fendant, Reuchlin  l)eing  represented  by  an  able  lawyer. 
The  opinions  of  several  theological  faculties  were  read, 
and  they  all  agreed  that  both  Renchlin's  decision  and  his 
pamphlet  contained  heresies  of  the  gravest  nature,  and 
that  they,  as  well  as  all  Hebrew  books,  should  be  burned. 
Judgment  was  about  to  be  passed  when  the  archbishop 
of  Speier  asked  for  a  delay  until  Reuchlin  himself  or  -his 
representative  could  be  heard.  The  stay  of  proceedings 
was  granted  as  a  matter  of  form,  and  the  Dominicans  pre- 
pared everything  for  the  grand  auto-da-fe^  when,  against 
all  expectations,  the  venerable  Reuchlin  appeared  in  per- 
son to  defend  himself.  Efforts  were  now  made  to  com- 
promise matters,  but  both  parties  were  stubborn.     When 


174  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

the  decisive  moment  arrived,  and  tlie  Dominicans  had  got 
themselves  ready  to  celebrate  their  victor}',  a  new  letter 
arrived  from  the  archbishop,  in  which  he  removed  all  the 
members  of  the  inquisitoiy  tribunal,  and  thus  stopped 
further  proceedings.  Hoogstraten  appealed  now  to  the 
jDOpe.  At  the  corrupt  court  of  Rome,  where  the  longest 
purse  was  sure  to  win,  he  hoped  to  bring  his  cause  to  a 
successful  issue.  Pope  Leo  X.,  however,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  too  much  of  an  infidel  himself  to  interest  himself  in 
theological  quibbles,  and  so  he  left  the  whole  matter  to  the 
decision  of  a  committee,  which  was  to  hold  its  sessions  in 
Speier,  and  appointed  friends  of  Reuchlin  to  serve  on  it. 
This  time  Reuchlin  appeared  in  person,  and  Hoogstraten 
sent  a  representative.  After  a  great  deal  of  judicial 
fencing,  a  verdict  was  rendered  in  Reuchlin's  favor,  and 
Hoogstraten  sentenced  to  pay  the  cost. 

The  Dominicans,  however,  were  not  dismayed  ;  it  was 
easy  at  that  time  in  Germany  to  grant  a  verdict,  but  it 
was  very  difficult  to  put  it  into  execution.  Hoog- 
straten's  party  appealed  again  to  the  Holy  See,  and  the 
monks  thundered  from  all  pulpits  and  in  innumerable 
pamphlets  against  Reuchlin  and  his  party.  He  had,  in- 
deed, become  the  standard-bearer  of  a  faction,  and  the 
gravest  political  discussions  were  put  aside  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  all-absorbing  question,  shall  the  Talmud  be 
burned,  or  shall  it  not?  There  was  not  a  village  where 
the  two  parties,  calling  themselves  Reuchlinists  and  Ar- 
noldists,  were  not  waging  a  bitter  feud  against  each  other, 
and  all  on  account  of  —  incredible  as  it  seems  —  the 
Talmud. 

Reuchlin  counted  among  his  supporters  the  Slite  and 
cream  of  Germany,  scholars  as  well  as  men  of  the  highest 
nobility.      Herman    Vom    Busche,   Ulrich    Von    Hutten, 


REUCHLIN   AND   PFEFFERKORN  175 

Count  Ulrich  Voii  Wuertemberg,  the  Count  of  Ilelfen- 
stein,  and  even  the  General  of  the  Order  of  the  Augus- 
tines,  Egidio  of  Viteibo,  embraced  his  cause.  In  order  to 
convince  the  pope  and  his  cardinals,  who  were  now  tu  be 
his  judges,  of  his  standing  in  the  intelligent  connnunity 
of  Germany,  Reuchlin  published  the  letters  which  he  had 
received  from  the  most  scholarly  men  in  Europe,  in  re- 
gard to  the  all-absorbing  question,  with  his  answers  to 
them.  Among  them  were  letters  written  in  the  most  ex- 
quisite Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew.  The  pope,  who  was 
by  no  means  adverse  to  Reuchlin,  but  did  not  dare  to 
stand  up  openly  for  him,  appointed  the  Cardinal  Grimani 
to  be  the  chairman  of  the  committee  which  was  to  pass  a 
final  judgment,  knowing  that  Grimani  was  a  good  Hebrew 
scholar  and  an  enemy  of  the  Dominicans.  Money,  how- 
ever, went  a  great  way  in  Rome,  and  Hoogstraten  had 
come  loaded  with  the  precious  metal,  while  the  high- 
standing  friends  of  Reuchlin  had  not  been  liberal  enough 
to  donate  the  necessary  funds,  and  Reuchlin,  compara- 
tively a  poor  man,  had  to  defray  all  the  expenses  of  his 
attorney  from  his  own  pocket.  While  the  process  was 
dragging  on  in  Rome,  the  Dominicans  attempted  to  bring 
a  pressure  upon  the  committee,  through  a  decision  of  the 
University  of  Paris,  at  that  time  the  most  renowned  uni- 
versity in  Europe.  By  their  machinations  and  intrigues 
they  so  succeeded  that,  after  forty-seven  sessions,  the 
learned  Parisian  professors  agreed  upon  the  verdict -that 
the  Talmud  was  the  most  dangerous  book  in  existence, 
and  that  it  ought  to  be  burned.  Even  King  Ludwig 
Xn.  sent  an  autograph  letter  to  the  pope  advising  liim 
to  suppress  Reuchlin's  "  Augenspiegel."  To  offset  the 
effect  of  this  blow,  there  appeared  in  Germany  a  publi- 
cation, intentionally  written  in  the  most  corrupt  Latin, 


176  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

called  "  The  Letters  of  Obscure  Men"  (^Literce  Ohscuro- 
rum  Viroruni).  They  were  anonymous,  and  purported 
to  have  been  written  to  Ortuin  Gratius,  the  friend  of 
Hoogstraten,  and,  while  they  seemed  to  be  in  sympathy 
with  his  cause,  they  brought  into  ridicule  the  actions  of 
both  the  Dojninicans  and  the  Church.  Their  circulation 
was  immense,  and  a  shout  of  laughter  reverberated  from 
one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other.  This  very  laughter 
chased  away  the  spook  of  the  Dark  Ages,  and  made  pos- 
sible the  work  of  Martin  Luther. 

The  committee  sitting  in  Rome  finally  passed  a  verdict 
which  was  neither  one  'thing  nor  the  other.  It  advised 
the  pope  to  suppress  the  whole  quarrel,  which  Leo  was 
pleased  to  do,  although  the  Dominicans,  having  been 
foiled  again  in  their  plans,  threatened  to  appeal  to  a 
council  of  the  Church.  What  they  might  have  done  is  a 
matter  of  conjecture,  but  they  did  nothing  because  their 
attention  was  arrested  by  a  new  movement.  The  field 
had  been  harrowed  and  well  prepared  through  all  these 
discussions ;  the  press  had  manifested  itself  as  a  power ; 
a  new  factor  had  appeared  upon  the  stage,  which  had  to 
be  consulted  in  all  matters,  viz.,  public  opinion;  and 
"  The  Letters  of  Obscure  Men,"  which  Ulrich  Von 
Hutten  once  said  were  written  by  the  hand  of  God  him- 
self, had  undermined  the  structure  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
A  slight  touch  was  required  to  make  the  building  fall, 
and  it  was  given  considerably  sooner  than  was  expected. 
Luther  nailed  his  theses  to  the  church-door  in  Witten- 
berg, and  the  strokes  of  the  hammer  which  drove  the 
nails  in  the  worm-eaten  wood  were  sufficient  to  bring 
down  the  proud  structure  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The 
Reformation  was  ushered  in,  and  the  Protestant  Church 
had  come  to  stay. 


REUCHLIN    AND   PFEFFEKKORN  1  (  ( 

If  the  Jews,  the  Talmud,  the  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew 
language,  and  Heuchlin  were  not  the  direct  causes  of  the 
Reformation,  tliey  were  at  least  highly  instrumental  in 
bringing  it  about.  They  played  as  prominent  a  part 
therein  as  did  even  Luther,  Melanchtlion,  Calvin,  and  the 
other  Protestant  leaders. 

If  we  look  at  the  Jews  of  that  period,  our  pity  is 
aroused,  not  on  account  of  their  miserable  political  posi- 
tion, not  on  account  of  their  degradation,  but  on  account 
of  the  lethargy  into  which  they  had  fallen.  The  night  of 
the  Middle  Ages  had  lulled  them  into  a  sleep  from  which 
they  did  not  awake  before  many  centuries.  They  had 
become  ignorant,  superstitious,  and  had  surrounded  them- 
selves with  a  crust  of  ceremonials  and  rites  which  hin- 
dered their  growth  and  development,  though  it  protected 
them  against  the  storms  of  the  outside  world.  Pressed 
together  into  their  narrow  Jewries,  constantly  harassed 
by  the  fear  of  being  attacked,  murdered,  or  plundered  by 
a  mob,  they  had  lost  all  interest  in  the  sciences.  They 
studied  the  books  of  their  small  libraries,  Bible,  Talmud, 
and,  above  all,  the  pernicious  and  superstition-breeding^ 
cabalistic  publications.  Their  thoughts  and  debates 
turned  about  no  other  subject  than  these  writings,  and 
Reuchlin  was,  therefore,  correct  when  he  said  that,  if  the 
Talmud  should  be  taken  away  from  the  Jews,  they  would 
turn  to  the  discussion  of  things  that  might  be  much 
more  dangerous  to  the  community. 

It  will  be,  therefore,  quite  a  relaxation  to  turn  to  a 
picture  which  is  painted  in  brighter  colors.  While  in 
the  Christian  part  of  Europe  the  condition  of  the  Jews 
was  both  materially  and  spiritually  miserable,  it  was  far 
better  in  the  Mohammedan  portion  of  it.  Under  the  au- 
spices  of   the    Turks   we   find    them    flourishing,  and   we 


178  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

behold  one  of  them  rising  to  the  dignity  of  prime  minis- 
ter of  the  then  powerful  Turkish  empire.  Joseph  Nissi, 
elevated  by  the  sultan  to  the  peerage,  ^and  known  as 
Joseph,  Prince  of  Naxos,  held  in  his  hands  the  destinies 
of  Europe,  in  a  way  similar  to  that  by  which  Prince  Bis- 
marck holds  them  to-day ;  and  this  Prince  Joseph  was  a 
Jew. 


XIV. 

JOSEPH,   PRINCE   OF   NAXOS,   AND   HIS   TIME 

A  MOCKING  dream  has  vexed  the  Jews  for  eighteen  hun- 
dred years.  From  the  day  that  the  Roman  legions  scaled 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem  to  this  very  hour,  some  hope  in  a  na- 
tional resurrection  has  been  kept  alive  among  Jews.  Dur- 
ing the  first  two  centuries  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  valiant 
efforts  were  made  to  win  back  through  the  sword  what  had 
been  lost  by  the  sword,  but  with  every  new  century  these 
martial  outbursts  became  less  vigorous,  until  the  hope  in  a 
restoration  assumed  a  tamer  form,  the  form  of  a  theory, 
and  finally  became  a  mere  dream,  pleasing  while  it  lasted 
but  always  unpleasant  after  the  awakening.  It  was 
wished,  and  therefore  hoped  and  believed,  that  the  day 
would  come  when  the  Israelites,  scattered  all  over  the 
earth,  should  be  reassembled  in  the  land  of  their  fore- 
fathers, should  be  settled  under  some  form  of  government, 
and  should  assert  their  sovereign  rights  as  do  other  na- 
tions. The  absurdity  of  such  a  hope  and  the  impossibility 
of  realizing  it  were  never  taken  into  account.  The  fact 
was  entirely  lost  sight  of  tliat  nations  are  formed  by  far 
different  methods  ;  that  to  begin  the  establishment  of  a 
people,  their  thoughts  must  be  pliable  and  not  hardened 
into  old  moulds ;  that  the  individual  members  must  be 
satisfied  to  unite  and  amalgamate  with  other  emigrants 
who  should  happen  to  cast  their  lot  with  them,  or  with 
the  inhabitants  whom  they  might  chance  to  find  on  their 

179 


180  DISSOLVING  VIEWS 

arrival.  No  nation  was  ever  formed  after  the  strict  out- 
lines of  a  prototype ;  nations  have  developed  into  what 
they  are  by  degrees,  through  amalgamation  with  other  ele- 
ments and  after  centuries  of  existence.  The  Jews,  how- 
ever, had  a  prototype ;  if  they  were  to  be  reestablished  in 
their  land,  they  wanted  to  be  just  such  a  nation  and  no 
other,  they  wanted  to  have  just  such  a  form  of  govern- 
ment and  no  other,  they  wanted  to  establish  just  such  a 
religion  and  no  other  :  their  republic,  or  monarchy,  or 
hierarchy,  or  whatsoever  it  was  to  be,  should  exclude  all 
strangers  as  elements  foreign  and  not  wholesome  to  its 
existence.  Such  conditions  may  find  places  in  the  tropic 
land  of  dreams,  but  surely  not  in  the  regions  of  cold 
reality.  The  riglit  place  for  the  Jew  seems  to  be  among 
other  races  ;  his  inborn  rationalism,  his  vivid  imagination, 
his  indefatigable  zeal  to  advance  and  push  forward,  make 
him  an  excellent  and  desirable  ingredient  among  masses 
who  are  more  indolent  and  less  ambitious. 

When  the  hopes  in  national  resurrection  were  so  fre- 
quently disappointed  that  even  the  most  credulous  of 
Jews  had  become  disillusioned,  the  idea  of  colonization 
suggested  itself.  If  God  neglected  to  redeem  his  pledge, 
why  sliould  not  the  Israelites  try  to  establish  better  con- 
ditions for  themselves  ?  If  they  could  not  be  collected 
into  a  kingdom  at  once,  why  should  not  colonies  be 
formed  as  a  nucleus  for  further  development  ?  The 
scheme  of  colonization  appeared  so  practical,  so  useful  to 
all  concerned,  so  glorious  that  even  in  our  own  days  it 
has  not  yet  been  relegated  to  the  place  to  which  it  be- 
longs—  to  fairy-land.  There  were  and  there  are  many 
good  reasons  why  the  Jews  should  be  colonized.  It 
would  give  to  them  a  more  respected  position  ;  it  would 
keep  them  out  of  reach  of  prejudice ;    in  course  of  time 


JOSEPH,   PRINCE   OF   NAXOS,   AND   HIS   TIME         181 

they  would  grow  into  a  nation  and  show  the  world,  by  a 
model  government,  what  was  proper  for  all  to  do ;  they 
might  have  their  own  army  and  navy,  their  own  kings  or 
presidents,  but,  above  all  tilings,  those  of  their  brethren 
who  would  prefer  to  stay  where  they  are  could  get  rid  of 
the  unpleasant  elements  in  their  midst,  of  the  poor  and 
destitute.  The  rich  and  well-to-do  never  cared  to  grace 
the  proposed  colonies  with  their  own  estimable  presence  : 
it  was  always  the  pour  who  should  go  or  be  sent  tliere, 
who  should  be  colonized ;  who,  inexperienced  as  they 
were  in  the  enterprise,  should  bring  it  to  a  successful 
issue  in  order  that  their  brethren  might  reap  the  benefit. 
No  wonder  that  under  such  conditions  colon izatioii  could 
never  have  prospered,  and  will  never  prosper,  not  even 
here  upon  free  American  soil. 

An  earnest  effort  to  colonize  the  Jews,  and  thus  to  put 
an  end  to  their  miserable  and  pitiable  condition,  was  made 
in  thfe  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  about  the  time 
when  the  Thirty  Years'  War  was  finished  and  had  left 
all  Europe  in  a  state  of  torpor.  If  ever  time  and  condi- 
tions were  prosperous  for  such  an  enterprise,  it  was  then, 
and  the  accounts  read  more  like  a  novel  than  like  dry 
history.     It  was,  however,  a  failure. 

Let  us  begin  right  at  the  beginning.  The  expulsion 
of  the  Jews  from  Spain  had  exiled  only  a  part,  perhaps 
only  a  small  part,  of  them.  A  great  number  had  re- 
mained, submitting  to  baptism.  Under  cover  of  the 
Christian  faith  they  continued  in  their  occupation ; 
and  while  they  performed  punctually  all  the  cere- 
monies and  rites  prescribed  by  the  Catholic  church, 
they  remained  Jews  at  heart  as  before.  They  married 
among  themselves,  initiated  secretly  their  children  into 
the  Abrahamic  rite,  and  assembled  in  secret  conclaves  for 


182  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

the  celebration  of  Jewish  festivals.  The  secrecy  and  the 
very  fear  of  detection  spread  a  charm  around  their  gath- 
erings and  fortified  them  in  their  adlierence  to  Judaism. 
The  Marauos,  as  these  pseudo-Christians  were  called, 
\\ere  numerous  in  Spain,  and  counted  among  themselves 
not  only  the  highest  dignitaries  of  the  state,  but  even 
bishops  and  cardinals  of  the  Church.  The  Inquisition 
was,  therefore,  in  constant  warfare  with  them ;  and 
wherever  and  whenever  one  of  the  Maranos  was  caught, 
when  it  could  be  proven  that  he  had  performed  some  Jew- 
ish rite,  no  mercy  was  shown  him,  he  was  burned  at  the 
stake  and  his  fortune  sequestrated. 

A  stream  of  gold,  pouring  upon  Spain  from  America, 
found  naturally  its  way  into  the  coffers  of  the  Maranos. 
Able  financiers,  they  grew  enormously  rich,  comparatively 
as  rich  as  are  to-day  the  Rothschilds,  Goulds,  or  Vander- 
bilts.  Now,  imagine  that  Mr.  Gould  and  his  family  should 
find  themselves  watched  day  and  night  by  spies  of  the 
Church,  and  that  they  should  feel  in  constant  fear  of  being- 
dragged  before  an  inquisitory  tribunal,  what  would  all 
their  wealth  be  to  them  ?  Would  a  family  of  such  re- 
sources not  endeavor  to  leave  the  country  where  their 
lives  are  not  secure  for  a  day?  The  rich  Maranos 
escaped,  therefore,  from  Spain  Avhenever  an  opportunity 
offered  itself  to  them ;  but  these  chances  were  rare,  the  in- 
quisitors were  vigilant,  and  when  they  observed  that  some 
person  was  about  to  wind  up  his  business,  and  to  with- 
draw his  capital  from  the  land,  they  immediately  accused 
him  of  being  one  of  the  Maranos,  which  was  equivalent 
to  accusing  him  of  high  treason.  Furthermore,  to  what 
countries  should  the  Maranos  flee  ?  The  same  preju- 
dice reigned  everywhere  against  them.  The  descendants 
of  the  former  Jewish  family  of  Nissi  had  grown  rich  as 


JOSEPH,    PRINCE   OF    NAXOS,    AND    HIS   TIME         \S-] 

Maranos  under  the  name  of  Mendes,  or  Mendoza ;  the}' 
had  founded  banking-houses  in  the  principal  cities  of  tlie 
continent,  especially  in  Antwerp,  and  emperors,  kings,  and 
princes  were  their  debtors.  By  degrees  they  had  with- 
drawn cautiously,  one  after  the  other,  from  Spanish  soil 
to  Antwerp  ;  but  in  the  Netherlands,  which  then  were  held 
down  by  the  iron  hand  of  Alba,  the  Inquisition  was  as 
lively  and  as  vigilant  as  in  Spain,  and  the  Mendes  family 
looked  for  another  place  of  refuge.  With  difficulty, 
Beatrice,  the  widow  of  Francesco  Mendoza,  succeeded 
finally  in  escaping,  with  her  daughter  Reyna  and  her 
sister  Grace,  to  Venice,  and  from  there  to  Constantinople. 
Her  nephew,  Joao  Miques,  had  preceded  them,  and,  after 
the  demise  of  the  seniors  of  the  firm,  he  became  sole  man- 
ager, marrying  Reyna,  the  daughter  of  Beatrice.  The 
fortunes  and  adventures  of  these  women  are  a  romance  in 
themselves,  and  it  would  fill  books  to  describe  how  they 
managed  to  save  their  persons  and  their  wealth  from  the 
clutches  of  the  kings  and  prelates.  We  shall,  however, 
turn  solely  to  the  adventures  of  the  nephew,  the  hero  of 
this  lecture. 

Joao  Miques  arrived  in  Constantinople  about  the  year 
1555.  Commanding  the  wealth  of  his  family,  he-  estab- 
lished a  business  which  twined  its  branches  around  the 
borders  of  the  whole  Mediterranean  Sea.  No  sooner  did 
he  reach  Mohammedan  soil  than  he  threw  »away  the 
mask  of  Christianity  and  appeared  openly  as  a  Jew,  as- 
suming his  former  family  name,  and  calling  himself  Don 
Joseph  Nissi.  His  wealth  and  social  standing  introduced 
him  soon  to  the  court  of  the  Sultan  Soleiraan.  Soleiman 
was  a  wise  ruler,  he  understood  how  to  select  liis  advisers, 
and  thus  he  discovered  that  Joseph  was  a  genius  by  whom 
he  and  his  country  could  profit.     He  liarbored  far-reach- 


184  DISSOLVING    VIKWS 

iiig  plans,  he  dreamt  of  reconquering  Spain  ;  and  who 
could  then  be  of  greater  use  to  him  in  such  an'  enterprise 
than  an  intelligent  man  who,  though  he  was  born  in 
Spain,  hated  it  with  the  most  deadly  enmity  ?  There  was 
another  reason  why  Joseph  was  considered  by  Soleiman 
to  be  of  great  usefulness.  His  vast  business  was  carried 
on  mainly  through  Jews ;  maltreated  as  they  were  every- 
where, they  did  not  nor  could  they  love  the  countries  in 
which  they  lived,  and  they  felt  no  scruples  in  betraying  to 
the  Turkish  government  whatever  happened  at  any  of  the 
European  courts.  Joseph  Nissi  was  bettA-  served  by  his 
system  of'  detectives  than  any  monarch,  and  he  was  in 
possession  of  news  days  before  it  reached  the  cabinet 
through  the  regular  channels.  Sultan  Soleiman  had  two 
sons,  Selim  and  Bajazet ;  Selim,  the  older  and  rightful 
heir  to  the  throne,  was  the  father's  favorite;  Bajazet,  a 
noble  and  spirited  youth,  was  the  idol  of  the  army.  It 
was  an  open  secret  that  in  the  event  of  Soleiman's  death 
the  army  would  raise  Bajazet  to  the  throne.  The  court- 
iers were  undecided  whose  cause  to  embrace,  and  would 
not  spoil  their  chances  with  either,  Joseph  Nissi  threw 
his  lot  with  Selim,  the  rightful  successor.  He  openly 
espoused  his  cause,  helped  to  defeat  Bajazet,  and,  when 
Soleiman  died,  the  grateful  Selim  made  Nissi  his  prime 
minister,  or,  at  least,  prime  adviser,  bestowing  upon  him 
the  title  Prince  of  Naxos,  with  the  sovereignty  of  the 
island  of  that  name.  The  Turks  held  at  that  time  the 
balance  of  power  in  their  hands,  as  to-day  the  Germans 
do.  The  Prince  of  Naxos,  who  had  the  ear  of  the  sultan, 
was,  therefore,  a  man  of  as  much  importance  as  is  to-day 
Prince  Bismarck.  The  Jews  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief. 
Whenever  a  danger  threatened  them,  they  appealed  to 
the  Prince  of  Naxos.      Man}-  a  diplomatic  note  was  ex- 


JOSEPH,    PKINCE    OF   NAXOS,    AND    HIS    TIME         185 

changed  between  the  cabinets  of  Constantinople  and 
those  of  Cliristian  sovereigns  in  regard  to  the  Jews,  and 
many  a  time  was  a  threatening  fate  removed  from  them 
by  the  warning  of  the  sultan  to  take  reprisals  on  Chris- 
tians living  in  his  domain.  The  Jews,  oli  their  part,  did 
all  they  could  to  support  the  sultan's  favorite,  and,  shak- 
ing off  tlieir  native  timidity,  they  lent  a  hand  to  the  most 
dangerous  enterprises,  with  a  courage  which  nobody  would 
have  credited  to  them.  Selim  had  looked  with  longing 
eyes  upon  the  island  of  Cyprus,  then  in  possession  of 
the  Venetians;  "but  while  Joseph  Nissi  advised  an  attack, 
the  rest  of  the  cabinet  dissuaded  the  sultan  from  it,  as 
being  too  expensive  and  too  venturesome.  Whether  or 
not  Nissi,  who  had  a  grudge  against  the  Venetians, 
wished  to  be  revenged  on  them,  or  whether  the  promise  of 
Selim  to  make  him  king  of  Cyprus  had  fired  him,  it  is  a 
fact  that  through  his  instigations  the  arsenal  of  Venice, 
with  all  its  rich  ammunition,  was  blown  up  with  gunpow- 
der. Jews  were  said  to  have  done  it,  and  the  state- 
ment may  be  true,  though  the  smell  of  gunpowder  is  pro- 
verbially distasteful  to  the  Jew ;  for  no  sooner  had  the 
news  reached  Constantinople  than  the  Prince  of  Naxos 
prevailed  upon  Selim  to  attack  Cyprus.  After  a  pro- 
longed siege,  Famagusta  fell,  and  the  island  came  into 
the  possession  of  the  Turks,  where  it  remained  through 
all  these  centuries,  until  a  decade  ago  another  offspring 
of  the  Jewish  race  —  Disraeli,  the  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  — 
annexed  it  to  Great  Britain.  Selim,  however,  did  not 
keep  his  word ;  he  gave  his  favorite  a  dozen  other 
small  islands  in  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  but  did  not 
make  him  king  of  Cyprus.  Tlie  Jews  dreamt  at  that 
time  of  nothing  else  than  of  their  national  restoration. 
A  new  Joseph  had  appeared,  he  was  to  be  their  king  ;  he 


186  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

should  collect  them  from  all  over  the  earth.  He,  before 
whom  the  high  dignitaries  of  church  and  state  cringed, 
was  one  of  their  own  race ;  God  had  sent  him  to  their 
relief,  and  the  evil  days  had  now  passed.  Alas  !  these 
were  pretty  dreams,  and  the  awakening  from  them  was, . 
therefore,  the  more  disappointing.  There  is  no  doubt  but 
that  Joseph  Nissi  himself  had  indulged  in  them  ;  but  pleas- 
aiit  and  easy  as  dreams  are,  realization  is  often  difficult 
and  unpleasant.  You  can  easily  imagine  a  paradise  ;  but  to 
hiy  out,  plant,  and  keep  one  in  order  is  not  so  easy  a  task. 
The  prince  made  an  effort.  To  commence  with,  he  pur- 
chased a  tract  of  land  in  Palestine,  near  the  Sea  of  Tibe- 
rias, and  built  upon  it  a  city  and  a  dozen  villages.  He 
erected  houses  and  factories,  planted  mulberry-trees,  in- 
tending to  establish  silk  factories,  and  meant  thus  not 
only  to  supply  the  new  citizens  with  clean  and  pleasant 
work,  but  to  secure  to  them  a  good  income.  When  all  was 
ready,  he  invited  the  Israelites  to  take  possession  of  the 
city,  and  to  begin  work.  Enormous  sums  had  been  sunk 
in  the  enterprise,  but  the  colony  did  not  prosper ;  little  is 
said  about  the  experiences  which  Joseph  had  with  the 
settlers,  but  they  were  not  of  an  encouraging  nature,  or 
he  would  have  repeated  the  experiment  in  other  places, 
or,  at  least,  continued  the  first  enterprise.  He  seems, 
however,  to  have  turned  a  cold  shoulder  to  his  coreligion- 
ists after  that,  and  when  a  new  demand  was  made  to  set- 
tle Jews  upon  some  of  the  islands  which  he  owned,  he 
declined  to  allow  them  to  do  so.  He  must  have  found 
out  by  sad  experience  that  colonizing  Jews  is  an  illusion  ; 
that  it  is  well  enough  to  talk  about,  but  impossible  to 
carry  into  effect. 

The  greatness  of  Joseph    Nissi  lasted  only  during  the 
life-time  of  his  protector,  Selim  H.     After  he  had  died. 


JOSEPH,    PRINCE    OF    NAXOS,    AND    HIS    TIME         187 

and  Murat  III.  had  ascended  the  throne,  his  enemies  found 
a  willing  ear,  and  succeeded  in  alienating  him  from  the 
new  ruler;  lus  titles  and  his  w^ealth  were  left  to  him,  but 
his  influence  in  politics  was  gone  forever.  He  had  basked 
so  long  in  the  sunshine  of  imperial  grace  that  he  could  not 
live  without  it,  and  a  few  years  later  he  died,  on  August 
2, 1579.  Not  only  did  all  his  plans  burst  like  soap-bubbles, 
but  even  the  wealth  which  he  had  accumulated  was  scat- 
tered to  the  winds.  The  sultan  sequestrated  iiis  fortune,  on 
the  plea  of  settling  his  liabilities,  and  his  wife  received  out 
of  it  little  more  than  her  dowry,  ninety  thousand  ducats. 

The  reign  of  Selim  II.,  and  the  influence  exerted  upon 
him  by  the  Prince  of  Naxos,  had  given  to  the  persecuted 
Jews  a  moment  of  rest  and  respite.  It  was  like  a  sun- 
beam which  on  a  spring  day  pierces  the  clouds  and  brings 
to  the  shivering  flower  the  promise  and  pledge  of  better 
times  that  are  to  come.  It  was  of  so  short  a  duration 
that  hardly  had  the  Jews  become  aware  of  it  when  it  was 
gone  again.  They  actually  had  not  known  how  to  make 
pro})er  use  of  the  opportunities  that  had  been  offered 
them.  Forgetful  of  their  common  fate,  they  endeavored 
to  win  for  themselves  individually  as  much  as  they  possi- 
bly could,  never  profiting  from  the  lessons  of  their  histor}', 
never  thinking  that  their  wealth,  with  their  injudicious 
and  ostentatious  display,  was  the  prime  cause  of  all  their 
oppression.  Some  thought  to  gain  by  intrigue  what 
they  could  not  obtain  by  right,  not  knowing  that  -a  tem- 
porary success  might  elevate  an  individual  but  could  never 
be  helpful  to  the  masses.  Clever  schemers,  who,  with  the 
best  intentions,  wished  to  lift  their  coreligionists  out  of 
their  miserable  condition  by  means  of  strategy,  succeeded 
only  so  far  as  they  themselves  were  concerned ;  their  co- 
religionists never  profited  by   their  machinations.      The 


188  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

few  days  of  sunsliiue  had,  furtliermoie,  given  life  and 
strength  to  one  of  the  most  poisonous  outgrowths  of 
Jewish  imagination,  to  tlie  Cabahih.  While  the  other 
nations  endeavored  with  all  their  might  to  break  the  fet- 
ters of  credulity,  and  to  push  forward  towards  the  age  of 
reason,  the  Jews,  who  had  formerly  been  in  the  vanguard, 
had  now  dropped  to  the  rear;  they  had  built  up  a  most 
fanciful  structure  of  belief,  and,  in  consonance  with  it,  had 
surrounded  themselves  with  superstitious  rites  and  cus- 
toms of  the  crudest  nature.  A  new  kind  of  Judaism  had 
sprung  into  existence,  in  which  hardly  a  trace  could  be 
found  of  the  Mosaic  or  prophetic  Judaism,  not  even  of 
the  grand  old  philosophy  of  Saadia  or  Maimonides.  This 
irrational  system  was  to  be  protected  by  the  same  rigor- 
ism as  was  that  with  which  the  Church  had  endeavored 
to  suppress  reason,  and  which  is  always  resorted  to  when 
light  is  to  be  obscured.  Since  the  decline  of  the  uni- 
versities of  Sura  and  Pumbedita,  Judaism  had  lacked 
a  centre.  Every  rabbi  was  an  authority  sufficient  for  his 
congregation.  They  would  stand  together  on  one  ques- 
tion, and  disagree  on  the  other ;  they  would  hurl  tlie 
lightning  of  the  ban  against  one  another,  and  excommuni- 
cation had  then  not  yet  lost  its  edge.  The  theories  of 
Albo  were  now  bearing  fruit ;  the  centre  of  gravity  was 
placed  in  the  life  to  come ;  there  was  a  soul  to  be  saved 
by  a  strict  adherence  to  formalities.  Heavenly  joys  were 
stored  away  for  the  pious,  and  tortures  worse  than  those 
of  the  Inquisition  were  awaiting  the  malefactor  in  the 
life  to  come.  Our  unfortunate  ancestors,  for  whom  the 
earthly  life  offered  little  inducement,  clung,  therefore, 
with  all  their  inherited  tenacity,  to  the  life  to  come,  and 
their  tortured  souls  asked  :  "  What  must  we  do  to  be 
saved?     What  must  we  do   in   order  to  obtain   a  little 


JOSEPH,   PRINCE   OF   NAXOS,    AND   HIS   TIME         189 

happiness,  if  not  here,  at  least  in  the  workl  to  come  ? 
Shall  we  enter  paradise  when  we  follow  the  decision  of 
this  one  rabbi,  or  will  we  be  thrown  into  eternal  perdition 
because  we  have  followed  the  guidance  of  the  other?" 
Their  whole  future  liappiness  was  dependent  upon  the 
performance  of  rites,  so  they  were  told.  Religion,  as  they 
learned  it,  was  a  bundle  of  forms.  It  was  a  grave  sin  if 
any  of  the  table  laws  were  broken,  even  though  without 
intent,  or  if  a  word  in  a  prayer  was  omitted  (jr  not 
spoken  at  a  proper  season.  There  was  even  a  great 
divergence  between  rabbles  as  to  what  was  allowable  and 
what  was  not.  No  wonder,  therefore,  that  man}-  wislied 
that  a  form  could  be  established  which  would  hold  good 
for  all  times,  and  by  which  ever}-  member  of  the  Jewish 
family  could  be  steered  into  the  heavenly  kingdom ;  and 
it  is  still  less  of  a  wonder  that  a  book  was  produced  at 
that  time  which  supplied  that  demand,  and  which  for  the 
last  three  hundred  years  has  been  the  highest  authority 
among  Jews,  wherever  they  lived,  an  authority  which 
reached  even  beyond  that  of  Talmud  or  Bible.  That 
remarkable  book  is  known  under  the  name  of  "Shulchan 
Aruch,"  "  The  Set  Table."  Every  question  of  ritual  was 
therein  answered;  every  occurrence  and  complication 
foreseen.  The  Jew  who  sat  down  at  this  table,  tliat  is, 
who  fulfilled  its  prescri[)tion,  could  rest  sure  that  his  soul 
was  saved,  and  that  he  would  enjoy  eternal  felicity  in  the 
life  to  come.  Tlie  author  of  that  book  was  Joseph  Karo, 
a  contemporarj'  of  Prince  Joseph. 

He  is  the  representative  and  exponent  of  that  kind  of 
Judaism  which,  to  a  great  extent,  has  come  down  to  us, 
and  which  we  may  still  recognize  through  the  mist  of  the 
last  three  centuries. 


XV. 

JOSEPH   KARO 

The  theory  of  evolution  and  the  deductions  drawn 
from  it  appear  at  first  sight  to  imply  the  steady  develop- 
ment of  a  thing  and  its  .continuous  advancement  from  one 
stage  of  improvement  to  the  next.  They  seem  to  imply 
that  a  living  thing,  once  ushered  into  life,  will  continue 
to  perfect  itself  in  a  foreordained  direction,  until  the 
last  spark  of  its  vital  fire  is  consumed,  or  until  it  has 
ascended  to  the  highest  summit  of  perfection.  Speak- 
ing of  evolution,  we  imagine  that  the  march  of  evo- 
lutionary development  leads  onwards  and  upwards  in  a 
straight  line  upon  a  well  paved  road  without  curves  or 
hindrances.  Taken  in  a  general  sense,  evolution  does 
mean  a  steady  progress,  a  steady  advancement  from  the 
good  to  the  better  and  from  the  better  to  the  best :  a  tree 
will  evolve  from  the  seed,  and  its  tendency  will  be  to  rise 
and  grow  upwards  as  far  as  its  inborn  vitality  will  per- 
mit ;  but  do  we  not  observe  frequently  that  suddenly  its 
stem  will  turn  from  the  natural  road,  grow  sideways  and 
become  crooked  ?  The  gardener  who  desires  the  branch  to 
grow  straight  will  tie  it  to  a  pole,  not  exactly  to  force  its 
growth  upwards  in  accordance  with  its  natural  tendency, 
but  to  overcome  hindrances,  obstacles,  and  influences 
which  tend  to  deflect  it  from  the  natural  course.  The 
wisest  and  most  experienced  gardener  cannot  always 
tell  why  a  tree   has  grown   crooked.     The  wind,  having 

190 


JOSEPH   KARO  191 

better  access  to  one  side  of  the  tree  than  the  other,  a 
grain  of  sand,  a  drop  of  rain,  and  a  thousand  other  causes, 
may  have  produced  the  phenomenon.  The  growing  into 
the  wrong  direction  is  so  invisible  at  the  beginning,  the 
angle  of  deflection  is  so  infinitesimally  small  at  the  start, 
that  the  sharpest  eye  hardly  observes  it  and  does  not 
notice  it  before  it  has  deviated  from  the  straight  line  to 
such  a  degree  that  the  evil  cannot  be  remedied.  There 
are  causes  and  reasons  for  every  deviation  from  the  plumb 
line  of  evolution  ;  there  are  obstacles  put  in  the  way  of 
the  growth  of  a  plant,  of  the  formation  of  a  mountain,  of 
the  course  of  a  river,  so  that  we  have  become  accustomed 
to  acquiesce  in  the  consoling  theory  that  all  things  move 
or  grow  along  the  line  of  least  resistance. 

We  meet  with  the  same  phenomenon  in  the  world  of 
thoughts.  If  there  had  not  been  hindrances  and  impedi- 
ments piled  up  across  the  mental  road  upon  which  human- 
ity has  been  traveling ;  if  improvements  had  followed 
improvements ;  if  one  strong  argument  had  produced 
a  still  stronger  one,  we  might  have  been  enjoying  long 
ago  that  state  of  general  happiness  which  is  known  by 
the  name  of  millennium :  but  wliile  we  are  advancing  in 
the  general  term,  while,  like  a  tree,  humanity  is  growing 
upwards,  we  must  not  forget  that  thousands  of  obstacles 
combine  to  hinder  the  march  of  progress  and  to  deflect 
the  growth  of  the  tree  from  its  regular  course. 
'  Neither  have  religions  evolved  in  the  sense  that  .they 
have  kept  on  improving  all  the  time.  We  find  that  there 
is  no  religion  of  which  the  stem  or  brandies  have  not 
grown  into  the  most  fanciful  shapes,  curving  to  the  right 
and  to  the  left,  upwards  and  downwards,  with  the  general 
tendency,  however,  of  rising  upwards.  A  great  part  of 
their  beauty  may  perhaps  be  found  in  the   curvature  of 


192  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

these  lines,  in  the  fact  tliat  tliey  have  not  grown  up  like 
prosaic  telegraph-poles,  but  that  they  delight  the  eye  by 
their  fantastic  forms. 

Judaism  has  evolved  in  a  most  wonderful  manner.  Its 
tendency  to  rise  upwards  is  unmistakably  visible  ;  still,  its 
growth  was  not  that  of  a  column.  On  the  contrary,  its 
development  was  most  fanciful.  Now  it  would  shoot 
upwards  in  a  straight  line  as  if  it  were  on  its  way  to  the 
next  star  by  the  shortest  possible  route  and  in  the  shortest 
possible  time ;  now  it  would  turn  abruptly  to  the  right  or 
left ;  at  another  time  it  would  seem  as  if  it  intended  to 
return  to  the  very  soil  from  which  it  had  risen.  There 
were  always  ways  to  account  for  these  deviations  and 
deflections  from  the  straight  line,  but  whether  these 
causes  trace  back  to  a  supernatural  interference  of  the 
divine  will,  or  to  complications  of  natural  conditions,  is 
immaterial  to  us ;  we  are  always  able  to  follow  them  and 
to  find  the  grand,  glorious,  and  consoling  verdict  that  if 
such  and  such  a  thing  had  or  had  not  happened,  this  or 
that  event  would  or  would  not  have  occurred. 

Following  the  historical  development  of  Judaism,  we 
have  now  arrived  at  the  time  when  the  word  development 
seems  to  be  mockery,  when,  instead  of  advancing  towards 
the  goal,  Judaism  seems  to  have  turned  its  face  from  it ; 
when  its  branches,  instead  of  growing  upwards  into  light 
and  air,  grow  downwards  and  creep  along  the  dark  ground 
from  which  they  had  emerged.  We  have  arrived  at  the 
time  when  great  men  have  become  scarce  in  Israel  and 
when  those  who  were  considered  great  were  growing  from 
the  top  of  the  branches  which  in  my  metaphor  were  bend- 
ing their  heads  towards  the  ground.  We  have  arrived  at 
a  time  when  rationalism  seemed  to  have  been  smothered, 
and  superstition  to   have   been   lifted   upon   the   throne. 


JOSEPH    KARO  193 

We  have  arrived  at  that  period  which  is  known  as  the 
time  of  the  ^Middle  Ages,  altliough  tliis  appellation  is  a 
misnomer.  The  ]\Iitlclle  Ages  had  almost  passed  and  were 
nearing  their  end  when  the  night  of  ignorance  and  super- 
stition covered  Judaism  with  shadows  which  reach  into 
our  very  age  and  from  which  we  have  escaped  only  a 
short  while  ago.  The  causes  of  this  deflection  are  easily 
discernible  now  that  the  mist  is  lifting  and  the  veil 
is  removed.  Constant  persecution  had  finall}'  broken  the 
proud  spirit  of  the  Jewish  people.  Not  enough  that  the 
ignorance  which  had  been  artfully  and  carefully  fostered 
by  the  church  had  infected  them  with  its  poison ;  their 
secluded  position  had  confined  them  to  a  narrow  range  of 
thoughts.  In  order  to  preserve  their  religious  identity, 
they  had  withdrawn  from  all  intercourse  with  the  world 
of  letters  ;  the}^  had  banished  all  literary  pursuits  and 
had  limited  their  libraries  to  Bible,  Talmud,  and  their 
commentaries.  If  we  now  look  upon  that  time,  it  does 
not  appear  at  all  wonderful  that,  brooding  over  the  very 
same  books,  over  books  which  were  breathing  the  spirit 
of  oriental  antiquity,  tlieir  heads  were  not  turned,  that 
they  did  not  observe  through  the  gloom  of  that  night 
shadows  of  all  kinds,  spectres  and  visions  from  another 
world.  A  peculiar  literature  had  arisen  among  them 
during  the  last  two  centuries,  known  as  the  Cabalah, 
and  this  literature  was  now  suppressing  and  stifling 
Talmud  and  Bible.  This  literature  was  bending  the  stem 
of  Judaism  downwards,  making  it  the  laughing-stock  of 
the  world,  and  the  caricature  which,  alas !  so  often  has 
served  as  a  target  for  the  humorist.  The  Judaism  of  tlie 
Middle  Ages  is  a  riddle,  and  cannot  be  understood  with- 
out a  knowledge  of  the  Cabalah.  It  is  difficult  to  decide 
whether  its  misery  was  a  result  of  the  Cabalah,  or  whether 


104  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

the  Cabalah  was  a  result  of  its  misery ;  the  fact,  how- 
ever, remains  that  the  one  cannot  be  understood  without 
the  other. 

Now,  what  is  the  Cabalah?  I  must  beg  you  to  relieve 
your  mind  of  all  those  notions  which  are  so  much  in 
vogue,  that  tlie  Cabalah  was  one  of  the  so-called  occult 
sciences,  like  that  of  necromancy  and  astrology.  The 
Cabalah  was  originally  no  secret  science,  no  secret 
knowledge  inherited  from  Egyptian  priests  or  sorcerers. 
It  was  a  mystic  philosophy  supported  by  the  authority  of 
the  Bible,  the  very  book  which  it  contradicted  most  vehe- 
mently. Maimonides  and  some  of  his  precursors  had 
attempted  to  explain  the  Bible  rationally,  a  treatment 
which  this  book  can  never  stand  without  a  denial  of  its 
supposed  divine  origin.  Common-sense  and  devout  belief 
were  thus  brought  into  conflict  with  each  other — a  con- 
flict which  never  can  be  harmonized.  If  the  authority  of 
biblical  commandments  were  not  to  be  destroyed,  it  be- 
came a  matter  of  necessity  to  stem  the  tide  of  skepticism, 
which  had  set  in  with  Ebn  Ezra,  and  had  reached  its 
height  with  Maimonides.  The  idea  began  to  spread  that 
the  Bible  did  not  contain  what  it  apparently  contained, 
but  something  else.  A  divine  author  could  not  have 
written  things  which  were  shocking  to  both  reason  and 
decency ;  but  he  might  have  artfully  written  a  document 
of  such  a  kind  as  Bacon  is  now  said  to  have  produced  in 
the  plays  to  which  Shakespeare  has  lent  his  name,  in 
order  to  preserve  some  thoughts  for  which  the  present 
generation  was  not  yet  ripe,  for  the  benefit  and  use  of  a 
later  one ;  that,  in  fact,  the  Bible  contained  merely  an 
artful  system  of  cyphers,  to  which  Moses  alone  had  re- 
ceived the  key.  The  owner  of  the  key  alone  was  able  to 
read  the  message  which  God  had  written  for  the  instruc- 


JOSEPH    KARO  19;') 

tion  of  his  cliildreii.  It  was  claimed  that  Moses  had  de- 
livered the  key  to  his  successors,  and  that  thus  the 
knowledge  of  the  true  meaning-  of  the  Bible  had  been  pre- 
served in  the  circle  of  the  more  intelligent  classes  of  the 
people.  This  remarkable  key  would  tell  the  owner  how 
to  rearrange  the  order  of  chapters,  sentences,  words,  and 
letters.  It  would  show  him  how  to  take  a  letter  from 
the  top  of  the  page,  add  its  numerical  value  to  the  figure 
of  a  letter  from  the  bottom  of  the  page,  and  replace  these 
two  letters  by  other  letters,  the  sum  of  which  would  be 
equal  to  their  value.  By  such  a  method  an  entirely  new 
Bible  could  easily  be  constructed,  though  it  still  remained 
the  Bible  and  the  direct  revelation  of  God.  Remodelling 
the  Bible  in  such  a  fashion,  it  was  not  at  all  necessary  to 
believe  the  stories  narrated  therein  which  were  so  objec- 
tionable to  common-sense.  The  unskilled  reader  might 
be  shocked  at  the  narrative  of  the  lewdness  of  Lot's 
daughters,  or  that  of  Judah  and  his  daughter-in-law, 
Thamar,  but  the  Cabalist  in  possession  of  the  key  would 
find  in  the  same  chapters  the  solution  of  some  divine 
problem  of  the  highest  spiritual  importance.  The  Cab- 
alist did  not,  therefore,  read  from  the  Bible  or  out  of  the 
Bible,  he  read  into  the  Bil)le  ;  he  did  not  read  what  God 
had  said,  but  what  God  ought  to  have  said.  The  most 
prominent  Cabalistic  production  was  the  '*  Sohar,"  a 
book  in  which  its  author  produced  a  most  wonderful 
philosophy.  He  asserted  that  God,  the  first  cause  of  all, 
had  evolved  from  himself  a  sphere  or  a  circle,  similar  but 
not  equal  to  himself;  that  from  this  s^ihere  another  em- 
anated, etc.,  and  thus,  circle  from  circle,  until  the  created 
Avorld,  the  tenth  circle,  was  brought  in  connection  with 
God  through  its  affiliation  with  the  intermediate  spheres. 
All  nine  spheres  were,  of  course,  populated  with  the  crea- 


196  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

tioiis  of  human  imagination,  with  all  kinds  of  angels  and 
spirits,  and  all  personal  and  national  hopes  found  a  satis- 
factory solution  in  this  philosophy.  Its  most  remarkable 
features,  however,  were,  first,  that  this  whole  system  was 
unravelled  from  the  Bible,  and  that  it,  as  the  word  of 
God,  was  made  to  vouch  for  the  truth  of  the  Cabalistic 
assertions ;  second,  that  practical  use  could  be  made  of  it. 
The  two  ends  of  the  system,  God  and  man,  stood  in  a 
closer  connection  with  each  other  than  could  easily  be 
believed.  God  worked  upon  man,  not  directly,  but  indi- 
rectly through  the  intermediate  spheres  ;  but  man  could 
work  through  the  same  channels,  by  retrogressive  action, 
upon  God.  Through  prayers,  fasting,  and  ceremonies,  a 
man  could  force  God  into  (obedience  to  his  will.  Through 
this  assertion  the  doors  were  opened  to  the  wildest  flights 
of  imagination,  and  reason  was  banished  entirely  and  for- 
ever. The  student  of  the  Cabalah  was  forewarned  to 
leave  reason  behind  before  entering  upon  that  sacred 
study.  Visionaries  and  mystics  were  alone  favored  witli 
an  insight  into  the  divine  secrets.  They  alone  succeeded 
in  obtaining  revelations.  To  a  man  who  could  not  sup- 
press his  reasoning  faculties,  the  Cabalah  would  remain 
forever  a  book  closed  with  seven  seals.  It  was  indeed  a 
luxury  to  the  Jew  of  that  period  to  flee  from  the  miseries 
which  surrounded  him  in  the  outside  world,  into  his 
closet,  to  revel  there  in  Cabalistic  dreams,  and  to  allow 
his  imagination  to  roam  about  without  bridle  or  halter. 
The  more  ignorant  the  masses  were,  the  more  were  they 
infected  with  the  general  mania,  and  the  more  did  they 
believe  in  the  assertions  of  those  to  whom  they  looked 
for  guidance.  One  Cabalist  would  carry  thousands  of 
the  credulous  multitude  with  him.  Seeing  his  secret 
practices,  seeing  him   fast,  bathe,  and   jDray,  they  would 


JOSEPH    KARO  197 

follow  his  example.  Every  rite,  ridiculous  in  itself,  was 
now  imbued  with  a  meaning  ;  every  prayer,  no  matter 
how  absurd,  had  now  a  function  ;  the  safety  of  a  personal 
future  existence  was  depending  upon  it,  and  the  idea 
even  spread  that  by  strict  adherence  and  proper  perform- 
ance of  these  rites  a  pressure  could  be  brought  upon  the 
whole  spiritual  world,  and  that  God  could  thus  be  com- 
pelled to  accelerate  the  end  and  to  bring  about  that  great 
revolution  which  would  place  the  Jews  again  at  the  head 
of  the  nations.  This  idea,  so  absurd  and  nonsensical,  was 
the  key-note  which  sounded  through  all  the  writings  of 
the  men  of  that  period  ;  without  it,  their  lives  and  the 
efforts  of  their  lives  remain  to  us  an  unsolved  riddle. 

Joseph  Karo,  a  man  who  lived  through  eighty-seven 
years  of  this  period,  and  who  left  us  an  extensive  treatise, 
must  surely  be  a  true  exponent  of  that  time.  He  was 
born  in  Spain,  in  1488,  but  emigrated,  with  his  parents, 
when  still  very  young,  to  the  European  part  of  Turkey, 
and  died  as  chief  rabbi  of  the  Jewish  congregation  of 
Saphet,  in  Palestine,  in  the  year  1575.  As  a  boy,  he 
had  become  intimately  acquainted  with  the  unfortu- 
nate but  adventuresome  Marano  Solomon  Molcho,  who 
had  pretended  to  be  the  Messiah,  and  who  was  finally 
burned  in  Mantua,  in  the  year  1532.  The  firm  belief  of 
the  latter  in  his  Messianic  mission  and  in  the  reality  of 
his  prophetic  visions  impressed  llie  bo}'  so  forcibly  that 
he  became  a  victim  to  similar  hallucinations  and  visions. 
While  a  young  man  he  mastered  the  Talmud,  and  plunged 
headlong  into  the  study  of  tlie  Cabalah.  Tin;  constant 
study  of  the  Mishna  brouglit  about  in  him  the  singular 
phenomenon  that  he  believed  tiiat  the  Mishna  a[>peared 
to  him  in  the  garb  of  a  mother,  not  once,  but  on  all 
important  occasions ;  that  she  would   speak  to  him,  and 


198  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

predict  coming  events.  Many  of  her  prophecies  were 
fulfilled,  but  many  others  never  came  to  pass.  She  told 
him  that  he  would  become  a  great  man,  that  he  would 
marry  three  wives  in  succession,  and  would  grow  rich  by 
the  dowry  that  they  would  bring  him,  that  he  would 
become  a  martyr  and  a  saint,  that  he  would  end  his  life 
on  the  pyre,  as  did  his  friend  Molcho,  and  that  miracles 
would  be  worked  at  his  grave.  Of  these  only  his  three 
marriages  and  the  renown  in  which  he  was  to  be  held 
by  later  generations  came  true.  A  rabbi,  Jacob  Berab, 
had  found  out,  through  Cabalistic  calculations,  that  the 
Messianic  time  could  not  be  established,  nor  God  com- 
pelled to  dismiss  the  Messiah  from  his  present  abode,  in 
one  of  the  "Sephiroth,"  unless  all  Jews  would  unite  in  one 
form  of  ritual,  and  unless  all  rabbles  would  teach  exactly 
the  same  lesson,  and  agree  with  one  another  in  all  points. 
To  make  all  of  one  mind,  a  source  must  be  discovered 
from  which  all  authoritj'  could  flow  ;  this  source  should 
be  found  in  a  Sanhedrin,  to  be  established  as  it  had  been 
in  olden  times,  and  endowed  witli  infallible  wisdom  and 
irresistible  force.  But  who  should  ordain  the  rabbles 
composing  this  supreme  religious  tribunal  ?  Where  should 
the  authority  be  found  from  which  tlie  authority  of  the 
Sanhedrin  could  be  derived?  The  ingenious  Berab  un- 
tied the  knot  in  an  Alexander-like  fashion.  He  had  him- 
self ordained  by  a  conclave  of  Palestinian  rabbles,  as  a 
first  authority,  and  then  proceeded  to  ordain  in  exchange 
those  who  had  ordained  him,  with  a  number  of  new  mem- 
bers. Among  those  thought  worthy  of  ordination  was 
Joseph  Karo,  who,  when  he  found  that  the  authority  of 
the  Sanhedrin  was  not  recognized  by  the  Jewish  commu- 
nity at  large,  began  to  prepare  a  book,  by  t  he  rules  of 
which  all  the  Jews  should  be  guided  in  all  matters  per- 


JOSEPH   KARO  199 

taiiiing  to  religion.  In  absence  of  a  supreme  authority,  a 
hook  like  Karo's  Sliulelian  Aruch  had  become  a  popular 
want,  and  its  value  was  enhanced  because  a  man  was  its 
author  who  had.  been  found  worthy  of  revelations  and 
visions  from  on  high.  You  will  now  understand  why  such 
a  work  was  hailed  with  joy,  and  found,  not  only  a  large 
circulation,  but  very  strict  obedience  ;  never  was  the 
Mosaic  law  so  strictly  obeyed,  as  was  the  Shulchan 
Aruch.  From  the  strict  performance  of  the  rites  pre- 
scribed therein  depended  not  only  the  future  welfare  of 
the  individual,  but  that  of  all  Israel  at  large.  It  was 
jelieved  that  if  all  would  uniformly  perform  the  same 
rites,  God  would  be  compelled  to  dismiss  the  Messiah, 
and  to  send  him  to  the  earth,  and  the  arrival  of  this 
divine  messenger  would  at  once  change  their  misery  into 
gladness,  their  weeping  into  dancing. 

The  Shulchan  Aruch  is  a  collection  of  all  the  practices 
and  usages  which  had  been  observed  among  the  Jews 
during  the  many  centuries  of  their  existence,  and  con- 
tains the  wisest  prescriptions  by  the  side  of  the  most 
absurd  superstitions.  The  author  never  questions  why 
and  when  any  practice  liad  been  introduced.  Whenever 
he  finds  tliat  some  ancient  author  has  expressed  himself 
favorably  in  regard  to  a  certain  custom,  he  admits  it  at 
once,  cind  holds  every  Jew  responsible  for  its  strict  fulfil- 
ment. Criticism  or  skepticism  had  no  place  in  his  nature, 
and  he  never  doubted  tlie  words  of  a  writer  of  the  -past. 
His  book  spread  a  gloom  over  all  Judaism.  It  banished 
the  smile  from  every  face  and  made  the  Jew  old  before 
his  time.  It  was  Karo  who  gave  to  the  Puritans,  in  liis 
Shulchan  Aruch,  the  prototype  of  their  blue-laws.  He 
prohibited  every  enjoyment  on  the  Sabbath  day.  He  made 
of  the  day  of  atonement,  which  was  originally  a  pleasure- 


200  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

day,  a  day  of  gloom  and  sadness.  He  infused  the  virus 
of  the  Cabalah  into  every  holidays  prayer,  and  ceremony. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  A  man  who  was  convinced 
that  he  could  compel  God  to  send  the  Messiah  before  the 
proper  time;  who  was  persuaded  tliat  by  the  performance 
of  some  kinds  of  mystic  rites  man  could  obtain  power 
over  all  the  other  nine  spheres  which  separated  him  from 
God,  inclusive  of  their  whole  population ;  a  man  who 
would  blindly  believe  and  never  reason  :  a  man  who  did 
not  care  a  straw  for  the  individual  opinion  of  his  brother, 
and  who,  with  genuine  Spanish  intolerance,  would  have 
compelled  all  to  abide  by  his  decision,  — what  would  such 
a  man  care  for  a  little  comfort  or  discomfort  more  or  less? 
What  would  he  care  about  wholesome  religious  and  moral 
development?  Lacking  all  knowledge  of  history,  there 
was  for  him  but  one  past,  and  this  was  that  of  the 
Davidian  reign ;  nor  was  there  any  other  future  before 
him  than  that  which  his  Messiah  would  bring.  He  knew 
nothing  of  the  desires  of  the  human  heart :  nothing  of  tlie 
pleasures,  recreations,  and  aspirations  of  tlie  j'oung.  He 
lived  in  a  world  of  visions,  of  phantoms  and  spirits,  and 
was  a  stranger  upon  earth,  and  lie  galled  and  soured  the 
life  of  the  Israelite  by  surrounding  him  with  legions  of 
sins,  all  created  by  him.  Sins  and  temptations  to  sins 
beleaguered  the  soul  of  the  Israelite  from  morning  till 
night,  and  even  in  his  sleep  he  could  not  escape  their 
power.  He  could  sin  even  in  a  dream.  The  Shulchan 
Aruch  was  the  morose  product  of  a  morose  spirit.  At 
the  time  of  Maimonides,  it  would  have  been  rejected  with 
scorn.  Two  hundred  years  after  Karo  it  was  rejected,  or, 
at  least,  circumvented,  but  at  his  time  it  satisfied  a 
public  demand  and  was  greeted  by  all  with  joy. 

Thus  we  behold  Judaism  changed  again,  but,  alas  !'  not 


JOSEPH    KARO  201 

improved.  The  skeptic  had  turned  a  mystic,  starved 
himself  with  fasts,  and  considered  the  earth  a  vale  of 
tears  and  misery.  In  munk-like  fashion,  he  as})ired  to 
rule  God,  while  he  allowed  the  reins  wherewith  to  govern 
the  earth  to  slip  from  his  hands.  We  ma}'  look  upon  that 
historical  period  with  pity  or  with  disgust.  I  leave  that 
to  your  choice,  my  friends.  But  whenever  the  question, 
"What  is  Judaism?"  is  to  be  answered,  shall  we  then 
point,  as  do  our  orthodox  brethren,  at  Karo's  Shulchau 
Aruch,  and  say,  "  This  is  Judaism  "  ?  Surely  not.  That 
was  Judaism ;  but,  thank  God,  it  is  Judaism  no  longer, 
nor  had  it  ever  been  Judaism  before  its  time.  We  can 
say  that  at  best  it  was  an  aberration  of  the  Jewish  mind, 
which,  caused  by  the  occurrence  of  certain  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances, had  darkened  our  religious  horizon  for  a 
short  period. 

We  yet  meet  frequently  with  the  consequences  of 
the  Cabalistic  aberration,  for  they  have  been  eliminated 
only  with  great  difficulty  from  the  body  of  Judaism.  We 
shall,  however,  now  turn  to  a  person  who,  though  not 
celebrated  as  a  great  scholar,  has  been  one  of  those  practi- 
cal men  who  had  their  eyes  in  their  forehead.  Looking 
ahead,  he  beheld  the  needs  of  future  days  and  endeavored 
to  supply  these  wants.  We  have  followed  our  ancestors 
through  all  lands,  but  we  have  not  yet  set  our  foot  on  the 
shores  of  England,  a  land  \\  itli  wliose  history  we  are  all 
familiar.  I  shall,  therefore,  devote  a  lecture  to  the  fort- 
unes of  the  Jews  in  England,  and  to  the  man  who 
secured  their  readmission  to  the  British  Isles  from  Oliver 
Cromwell. 


XVI. 

MANASSE  BEN   ISRAEL   AND   HIS   TIME 

It  is  not  of  unfrequent  occurrence  that  men  who  have 
the  disposition  of  large  fortunes  draw  from  their  wealth 
but  a  slight  dividend,  while  men  who  are  dependent  upon 
the  good-will  of  others,  whose  liabilities  are  sometimes 
larger  than  their  assets,  and  who  have  to  pay  a  large 
interest  on  the  capital  which  they  handle,  manage  to  draw 
such  a  competency  from  their  transactions  that  the  world, 
judging  from  appearances,  considers  them  rich  and  grants 
to  them  such  social  positions  which,  as  a  rule,  go  with  the 
possession  of  actual  wealth.  The  one  of  the  two  classes 
of  business-men  turns  over  the  same  dollar  only  once 
a  year ;  the  other,  ten  times,  if  not  oftener.  It  is, 
therefore,  not  the  bullion  buried  in  his  safe  that  repre- 
sents the  real  wealth  of  a  man  ;  it  is  his  genius,  the  way 
he  handles  capital  that  provides  him  with  a  large  share 
of  the  good  things  of  this  earth.  In  the  world  of  letters 
the  same  laws  prevail  as  in  the  mercantile  world.  There 
are  men  who  possess  mines  of  knowledge,  who  have  at 
their  disposal  stores  of  facts,  who  have  at  their  fingers' 
ends  all  the  events  that  have  occurred  from  the  first  day 
of  creation  to  their  time,  the  roots  of  all  the  words  that 
ever  were  spoken,  or  the  rules  of  law  by  which  judges 
have  ever  been  governed ;  in  a  word,  men  who,  like  King 
Solomon,  know  the  properties  of  all  things,  from  the  palm- 
tree  to  the  hyssop.     These  men,  however,  little  know  how 

202 


MANASSE    BEN    ISRAEL    AND    HIS    TIME  203 

to  make  use  of  all  their  wisdom  and  knowledge.  They 
may  live  happily  in  the  possession  of  their  intellectual 
wealth ;  but  the  dividend,  the  revenue,  which  they  derive 
from  it  is  rather  small.  Others,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
have  less  profundity  of  knowledge,  know  better  how  to 
make  proper  use  of  their  resources.  Instead  of  locking 
them  miserly  awa}^  they  expose  whatever  little  they  have 
learned,  the}'  loan  it  out  on  good  interest  and  make  it 
thus  the  common  property  of  all ;  they  turn  over  the  one 
dollar  of  their  wisdom  a  hundred  times  in  a  year,  for  a 
hundred  different  purposes  and  in  a  hundred  different 
transactions,  Avhile  the  first-named  class  allow  their  men- 
tal capital  to  rest  unused.  It  is  no  question  but  that 
humanity  has  been  much  more  benefited  by  the  work  of 
the  latter  class  than  by  that  of  the  former,  and  a  grate- 
ful posterity  has  oftener  showered  fame  and  renown  upon 
those  than  upon  the  men  whom  we  might  not  improperly 
call  the  bloated  intellectual  bond-holders.  These  intel- 
lectual capitalists  may  look  down  contemptuously  from 
their  elevated  position  upon  the  humble  workers  who 
borrow  from  them,  often  at  high  interest ;  but  the  intel- 
lectual trade  is  in  the  hands  of  the  latter,  and  so  are  the 
greater  profits. 

I  shall  speak  to  you  to  night  of  a  man  who  belonged  to 
this  second  class;  of  a  man  who,  though  he  was  by  no 
means  a  profound  scholar,  has  well  deserved  the  esteem 
in  which  he  was  held  by  his  contemporaries,  because  he 
well  understood  how  to  make  excellent  use  of  what  little 
he  knew.  I  shall  speak  of  a  man  from  whom  Judaism 
has  profited  more  than  by  a  dozen  of  his  more  scholarly 
contemporaries  ;  of  a  man  who,  by  his  word,  Avork,  and 
private  life,,  has  made  Judaism  respected,  or,  at  least, 
has  paved  the  way  for  the  respect  wliich  it  now  enjoys. 


204  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

Manasse  Ben  Israel  was  born  in  1604,  in  Lisbon  ;  but  he 
emigrated  early  with  his  father,  a  fugitive  Marano,  to 
Amsterdam,  which  tlien  was  the  place  of  refuge  for  all 
persecuted  Israelites.  Such  were  his  abilities  that,  besides 
his  studies  of  the  Bible,  Talmud,  and  Cabalah,  he  mas- 
tered several  languages,  and  that  at  the  age  of  eighteen 
years  he  was  elected  to  the  high  position  of  Chacham,  or 
Rabbi,  of  the  cons^reffation  of  Amsterdam.  The  freedom 
which  Holland  had  granted  to  the  Jews  had  been  followed 
by  the  same  consequences  which  had  ever  resulted  when- 
ever the  sun  of  liberty  was  allowed  to  shine  upon  Jews. 
They  gave  up  their  chmnishness,  entered  upon  terms  of 
sociality  with  their  fellow-citizens,  studied  all  branches  of 
science,  and  began  to  take  a  lively  interest  in  communal 
affairs.  In  Amsterdam  they  did  not  remain  behind  their 
neighbors  in  outward  pomp.  They  built  an  elegant  syna- 
gogue, established  a  Hebrew  academy,  in  which,  by  a  sys- 
tematic course,  a  scholar  could  rise  from  class  to  class, 
from  the  a,  b,  c  to  the  mastery  of  the  Talmud.  They 
introduced  even  something  which  was  then  a  novelty 
among  Jews,  viz.,  sermons.  The  Catholic  church  was 
built  upon  the  sacraments,  and  sermons  were  a  luxur3^ 
not  identical  with  the  church  service  itself;  the  Protes- 
tant church,  discarding  the  pompousness  of  the  Catholic- 
church,  was  built  upon  the  sermon,  upon  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel,  and  would  collapse  without  it.  In  Protestant 
Holland  the  Jews,  as  usual,  accommodated  themselves  t(. 
the  customs  of  the  land,  and  demanded  of  their  three  rab- 
bles that  they  should  preach  sermons  alternately.  Aboab, 
one  of  Manasse's  colleagues,  was  renowned  for  the  pro- 
fundity of  his  remarks,  while  Manasse  was  noted  for  his 
eloquence.  A  distinguished  visitor,  who  had. heard  them 
both  preach,  expressed  himself  regarding  them  in  the  fol- 


MANASSE    P.KN    ISRAEL   AND    HIS    TIME  205 

lowing  way:   "Aboab,"  said  he,  "knows  what  he  says, 
and  Manasse  says  what  he  knows." 

Manasse  would  perhaps  have  remained  as  unknown  as 
his  more  scholarly  colleagues  had  he  not  caught  up  with 
the  spirit  of  his  time,  had  he  not  understood  what  even 
to-day  many  clergjunen  seem  not  to  understand.  He 
recognized  and  appreciated  the  power  of  the  jjress  ;  he  found 
the  time  had  passed  when  people  could  be  reached  only 
by  the  ear,  and  that  a  new  day  had  come,  in  which  people 
could  be  reached  and  ought  to  be  reached  through  the 
eye.  Manasse  published  his  sermons,  his  essays ;  in  fact, 
all  with  which  he  wanted  people  to  be  impressed.  He 
opened  a  printing-office  himself.  Financially  his  enter- 
prise was  no  success;  he  did  not  grow  rich  by  the  royalty 
he  received  from  the  sale  of  his  pamphlets  and  books,  but 
he  succeeded  better  intellectually.  His  name  became 
advertised,  and  his  fame  spread.  Christian  scholars,  men 
who  had  never  heard  of  his  contemporaries  and  had  never 
deemed  it  worth  while  to  become  acquainted  with  them, 
heard  of  him  and  sought  his  friendship.  The  word  of 
Manasse  Ben  Israel,  deficient  as  it  was  in  a  great  many 
cases,  still  had  a  sound.  It  caught  the  attention  of  the 
masses ;  people  were  willing  to  stand  still  and  to  listen  to 
what  Rabbi  Manasse  Ben  Israel  had  to  say.  Among  the 
many  books  which  he  published  I  shall  mention  his  "Con- 
ciliador,"  written  in  the  Portuguese  language,  in  which 
he  attempted  to  straighten  out  the  contradictions,  con- 
tained in  the  Bible,  and  another  book,  on  "The  Resurrec- 
tion," in  which  he  defends  the  most  nonsensical  Cabalis- 
tic beliefs  in  the  migration  of  souls.  The  hope  in  the 
near  advent  of  the  Messiah  was  very  strong  in  him.  How 
could  it  be  otherwise?  The  Christian  world,  too,  was 
sure  that  the  fifth  empire,  or  era  prophesied  by  Daniel  and 


206  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

the  New  Testament  writings,  was  near  at  hand.  The 
main  question  was  whether  Jesus  of  Nazareth  would 
appear  again,  or  some  other  personality ;  but  that  the 
Jews  must  by  necessity  be  a  factor  of  great  importance 
in  the  Messianic  drama  was  beyond  question,  and  con- 
ceded by  all.  Two  points  embarrassed  greatly  the  Mes- 
sianic enthusiasts  of  that  time.  According  to  biblical 
predictions,  the  Messiah  was  to  reinstate  the  twelve  tribes 
of  Israel,  but  how  could  this  be  done  as  long  as  ten  tribes 
were  lost  ?  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  appeared  to  many, 
therefore,  as  utterly  useless  unless  the  ten  tribes  could  be 
found.  Manasse  Ben  Israel  was  happy  to  solve  this  im- 
portant question,  and  to  set  the  anxieties  of  his  corelig- 
ionists, as  well  as  those  of  his  Christian  friends,  at  rest.  A 
Jewish  traveller  had  made  a  great  discovery.  He  had 
seen  some  members  of  the  lost  tribes,  and  he  had  con- 
firmed it  with  an  oath  to  Manasse  himself.  Antonio  de 
Montezinos,  a  Marano,  had  gone  to  America,  which  was 
then  the  land  of  wonders.  From  an  Indian  he  had  heard 
that  in  the  interior  there  lived  a  tribe  which  performed 
ceremonies  similar  to  those  which  he  had  seen  him  (Anto- 
nio) perform.  After  much  urging,  he  was  taken  to  the 
place,  which  he  reached  after  an  adventuresome  journey 
of  several  daj^s,  and  was  introduced  to  three  people,  two 
men  and  a  woman,  who  greeted  him  with  the  Hebrew 
words,  "  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  thy  God  is  one."  They 
assured  him  that  they  were  descendants  of  the  ten  tribes, 
who  had  reached  America  after  many  adventures,  and 
had  settled  in  tlie  interior  of  the  continent,  preserving 
their  religious  customs.  Montezinos,  Avho  visited  Am- 
sterdam in  the  year  1644,  gave  to  Manasse  the  details  of 
his  discovery,  and  he,  of  course,  had  no  doubt  but  that  all 
was   literally  true.     He  published   a   pamphlet  entitled, 


MANASSE   BEN   ISRAEL    AND   HIS   TIME  207 

"  The  Hope  of  Israel,"  in  wliich  he  made  known  to  the 
world  this  surprising  piece  of  news,  making  it  the  funda- 
mental point  of  his  argument  that  the  Messianic  time 
was  fast  approaching. 

This  one  question  having  been  settled  to  satisfaction, 
another  rose  into  still  greater  prominence.  It  was  gener 
ally  believed  that  the  Messiah  would  not  come  until  the 
Jews  had  been  thoroughly  dispersed  and  spread  all  over 
the  surface  of  the  inhabited  earth.  Scripture  had  pro- 
claimed in  unmistakable  terms  that  the  Messiah  should 
collect  the  Jews  from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth ;  and 
although  they  were  b)^  that  time  fairly  well  scattered 
about,  although  the}^  were  to  be  found  in  Asia,  Africa, 
the  European  continent,  and  even  in  America,  there  was 
just  one  small  corner  which  they  had  not  3'et  reached,  and 
this  corner  was  England.  It  was  absolutely  necessary 
that  Jews  should  reside  in  England  if  the  Messiah  was  to 
ever  have  a  chance  of  coming.  Now,  here  was  an  obstacle 
which  could  be  overcome  by  human  efforts ;  and,  whereas 
the  times  were  propitious  to  the  project,  ]\Ianasse,  in  his 
eagerness  to  accelerate  the  advent  of  the  Messiah,  set  him- 
self to  work  to  bring  about  an  immigration  of  Jews  into 
the  British  Isles. 

Whenever  I  read  of  the  efforts  which  our  ancestors 
made  to  hasten  the  arrival  of  the  Messiah,  my  heart  is 
stirred  with  pity  and  commiseration.  We  in  our  time  are 
hardly  able  to  understand  how  it  ever  was  possible  for 
rational  beings  to  indulge  in  such  delusive  visions.  We 
can  hardly  comprehend  how  people  could  ever  believe 
that  one  man  appealing  among  them  could  bring  about 
what  their  united  efforts  could  not  perform;  and  still  less 
can  we  to-day  realize  how  people  otherwise  sane  could 
imagine  that  God  could  l)e  compelled  to  send  that  man. 


208  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

that  by  fasts,  prayers,  and  ceremonies  the  advent  of  the 
Messiah  could  be  accelerated. 

It  is,  however,  a  fact  that,  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  not  one  Israelite  but  all,  not  the 
ignorant  multitude  but  even  the  learned  few,  not  Jews 
alone  but  Christians  and  Mohammedans  too,  believed 
firmly  that  the  Messiah  would  appear  and  the  Jews  would 
be  restored  to  national  activity  and  order  of  some  kind. 
We  must,  therefore,  not  look  upon  Manasse  Ben  Israel 
as  upon  a  person  whose  enthusiasm  was  bordering  on 
insanity,  when  we  find  him  working  with  all  the  might 
which  religious  devotion,  coupled  with  patriotism,  can 
lend,  for  the  sole  aim  of  obtaining  permission  for  the 
Jews  to  return  to  England  ;  his  purpose  was  not  to  secure 
for  them  more  hospitable  homes  on  British  soil,  but  for 
the  avowed  end  that,  a  dispersion  of  Israel  thus  being  per- 
fected, the  Messiah  could  be  compelled  to  appear.  The 
times  were  indeed  propitious  for  Manasse's  hobby.  It  is 
not  known  when  Jews  settled  for  the  first  time  in  Eng- 
land. A  great  many  legendary  accounts  are  afloat,  which 
place  their  arrival  in  the  British  Isles  as  far  back  as  the 
time  of  the  Phoenicians.  Historical  evidences,  however, 
of  the  presence  of  Jews  in  England  are  not  found  before 
the  middle  of  the  eighth  century.  From  that  time  to  the 
time  of  their  expulsion,  which  occurred  at  the  close  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  their  fate  in  England  was  the  same  as 
was  that  in  other  countries.  At  one  time  they  were 
favored  and  protected  by  a  well-meaning  king,  and  they 
grew  rich  in  wealth  and  knowledge  ;  at  another  tliey  were 
persecuted,  plundered,  and  murdered.  They  were  both 
loved  and  hated,  petted  and  persecuted,  without  cause. 
After  the  final  expulsion  under  Edward  I.,  individual 
Jews  only  occasionally  set  their  foot  upon  British  soil.     It 


MANASSE    BEN    ISRAEL   AND    HIS    TIME  209 

is  said  that  Queen  Elizabeth  confided  the  care  of  lier 
health  to  a  physician,  Rodrigo  Lopez,  a  Jew ;  and  that  in 
1650  a  Jew  named  Jacobs  introduced  the  use  of  coffee 
into  England  by  opening  a  coffee-house  at  Oxford,  but  for 
two  hundred  years  the  English  population  never  beheld 
the  face  of  a  Jewish  resident.  Shakespeare  had  never  seen 
a  Jew,  nor  was  he  ever  acquainted  with  their  customs 
and  ways  of  thinking ;  and  his  Shylock  is  as  far  from  be- 
ing a  true  representation  of  a  Jew  as  is  the  picture  of  a 
sea-serpent,  such  as  appears  on  the  sign-board  of  a  trav- 
elling showman,  from  the  original,  which  neither  the 
painter  nor  anybody  else  has  ever  seen.  The  Reforma- 
tion, which  had  not  confined  itself  to  religious  matters, 
but  liad  extended  its  fermenting  influence  even  into  poli- 
tics, had  brought  about  great  changes  in  the  religious  and 
political  views  of  the  English.  The  Bible,  through  its 
authorized  translation  and  through  the  press,  had  become 
a  household  library ;  it  had  permeated  the  masses,  and 
began  now  to  exert  its  influence.  Assuming  that  every 
word  in  it  was  the  word  of  God,  not  few  even  imagining 
that  God  had  made  use  of  their  English  idiom  when  ad- 
dressing the  people  of  Israel,  they  took  the  biblical  char- 
acters for  their  prototypes.  The  martial  and  stal\\'Tirt 
Britishers  felt  attracted  more  by  the  spirit  of  the  Old  than 
by  that  of  the  New  Testament.  The  books  of  Joshua, 
Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings  were  their  favorite  study,  and 
quotations  from  them  were  always  at  the  tip  of  their 
tongues.  The  war  songs  of  David  appealed  to  their  sym- 
pathy, and  struck  a  chord  in  their  valiant  hearts.  They 
began  to  love  the  people  of  God,  and,  as  they  themselves 
were  eager  to  establish  a  kingdom  of  God  after  the  biWi- 
cal  pattern,  the}^  could  not  but  admit  that  Jehova  would 
not  cast  out  forever  his  favorites,  but  would  turn  to  them 


210  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

again  in  mercy  and  pity.  Believing  in  miracles,  they 
could  not  but  allow  that  God  might  lead  back  his  people 
into  Palestine  with  an  outstretched  arm  and  a  powerful 
hand.  This  love  and  sympathy,  however,  were  rather  of 
an  ideal  and  Platonic  nature.  The  English  could  afford 
such  a  luxury,  because  there  was  not  a  Jew  upon  English 
soil  with  whom  they  might  come  in  conflict.  How  strong 
their  pretended  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  Jews  was,  be- 
came now  evident  when  it  was  put  to  the  test. 

When  Oliver  Cromwell  made  himself  master  of  the  sit- 
uation, Manasse  thought  that  the  time  had  arrived  for  the 
realization  of  his  hopes.  He  sent  to  him  a  petition  writ- 
ten in  the  Latin  language,  and  humbly  asked  of  him  to 
lay  it  before  the  parliament.  In  this  memorial,  he  ex- 
plained that  the  time  of  the  ad  vent  of  the  Messiah  was 
near  at  hand,  that  at  last  the  ten  tribes  had  been  found, 
and  that  the  only  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  speedy  com- 
ing of  the  Messiah  was  that  no  Jews  were  living  in  Eng- 
land. He  begged,  therefore,  that  the  law  through  which 
the  Jews  had  been  expelled  should  be  repealed  by  act  of 
parliament.  He  promised  that  the  English  people  should 
not  be  harmed  by  the  Hebrews,  as  their  stay  would  be 
only  of  a  transitory  nature.  After  the  dispersion  of  the 
Jewish  people  became  perfected  by  their  return  to  Eng- 
land, the  Messiah  would  appear  and  recall  them  from 
thence.  His  petition  reached,  indeed,  the  parliament,  and 
met  with  a  somewhat  favorable  reception.  Lord  Middle- 
sex addressed  a  letter  in  behalf  of  the  government  to  his 
"beloved  brother,  the  Hebrew  philosopher,  Manasse  Ben 
Israel,"  enclosing  a  passport  and  an  invitation  to  visit 
England.  But  there  is  many  a  slip  between  the  cup  and 
the  lip.  A  war  broke  out  between  England  and  Holland ; 
domestic  troubles  laid  claim  upon  the  full  attention  of 


MANASSE   BEN   ISRAEL    AND   HIS   TIME  211 

Cromwell,  and  Manasse  came  near  deserting  liis  position, 
leaving  the  pulpit  and  becoming  a  merchant.  The  clouds, 
however,  soon  passed  by,  and  when  the  new  parliament, 
composed  mostly  of  Cromwell's  friends,  met  on  the  5th 
of  July,  in  the  year  1653,  another  petition  of  Manasse's 
was  laid  before  the  house  and  handed  over  to  a  committee. 
Again  he  received  an  invitation  from  the  committee  to 
represent  his  cause  in  person,  but,  before  he  had  time  to 
settle  his  affairs  in  Holland,  the  parliament  was  dissolved 
on  December  12  of  the  same  3^ear,  and  Cromwell  assumed 
the  title  of  Protector.  In  the  following  year,  Manasse 
repeated  his  petition,  and  Cromwell  sent  it  again  to  the 
parliament,  then  in  session,  recommending  it  for  speedy 
action.  For  the  third  time  Manasse  was  invited  to  plead 
his  cause  in  person.  This  time  he  went.  In  October, 
1655,  he  arrived  in  London,  and  was  received  with  the 
choicest  courtesies  by  the  powerful  Protector.  When  he 
was  received  by  Cromwell  in  audience,  he  delivered  to 
him  a  carefully  prepared  address,  in  which  he  emphasized 
that  God  had  ever  punished  those  who  had  been  hostile 
against  his  chosen  people,  while  he  had  blessed  the  friends 
of  Israel.  In  a  country  which  so  highly  cherished  free- 
dom of  thought  and  speech,  and  which  had  changed"  its 
form  of  government  from  the  monarchical  into  the  repub- 
lican, he  hoped  that  also  the  Jew  would  find  a  domicile 
and  be  allowed  to  enjoy  the  same  freedom  as  others.  At 
the  same  time,  Manasse  published  what  he  called  a  ."  Dec- 
laration," in  which  he  gave  his  reasons  why  the  Jews 
should  be  admitted.  This  memorial  rested  upon  two 
points.  The  one  was  his  hobby  that  the  stay  of  the  Jews  in 
England  should  last  only  for  a  short  period  ;  that,  all  nec- 
essary preliminaries  having  then  become  fulfilled,  the 
Messiah  would,  nay,  7nust,  come.     The  other  was  that  Eng- 


212  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

land  would  profit  from  the  mercantile  spirit  and  enter- 
prise of  the  Jews.  Cromwell  was  decidedly  in  favor  of 
admitting  the  Jews,  though  what  his  reasons  maj'  have 
been  we  do  not  know.  He  laid  the  affair  before  a  com- 
mittee composed  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  Glynn,  the 
Lord  Chief  Baron  Steele,  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Ex-Lord 
Mayor  of  London,  the  two  sheriffs,  seven  aldermen,  and 
fourteen  high  dignitaries  of  the  church.  The  committee 
met  on  December  4, 1655,  in  Whitehall,  to  discuss  whether 
the  act  of  Edward  I.  was  yet  in  force,  as  it  had  not  been 
sanctioned  by  any  i^arliament,  and  whether  and  under 
what  conditions  and  restrictions  England  should  be  opened 
to  Jewish  immigration. 

It  now  became  evident  that  the  great  love  for  the 
Jews,  of  which  the  English  Protestants  had  made  so 
great  a  display,  was  only  skin-deep.  All  London  became 
excited ;  the  populace  objected  to  admitting  the  Jews, 
and  all  the  old  and  threadbare  prejudices  were  again 
forced  into  service.  It  was  said  that  they  would  ruin 
the  land  by  usur}^  that  they  would  kill  the  children  of 
Christians,  that  they  would  clip  the  coins,  and  so  forth. 
The  hall  was  crowded  with  excited  spectators.  After  three 
sessions  the  committee  had  arrived  at  no  decision.  Crom- 
well himself  presided  in  a  fourth  one,  on  December  18, 
1655.  He  introduced  Manasse,  who  addressed  the  meet- 
ing, and  Cromwell  himself  spoke  with  great  fervor  for 
him  and  his  cause,  reproaching  the  clergy,  who  could  not 
be, stirred  an  inch.  His  argument  to  them  was  the  fol- 
lowing :  "  Christianity,"  said  he,  "  6ught  to  be  preached 
to  the  Jews,  that  they  might  become  converted  ;  but  how 
can  this  be  done  if  we  do  not  receive  them  in  our 
midst  ?  "  All  was  in  vain.  Rumors  spread  that  the  Jews 
were  ready  to  buy  St.  Paul's  Church,  and  to  convert  it 


MANASSE    BEN   ISRAEL   AND    HIS    TIME  218 

into  a  synagogue,  that  they  were  transacting  for  the  pur- 
chase of  Oxford  University,  tliat  a  committee  had  ar- 
rived to  ascertain  wliether  Cromwell  himself  was  not  the 
Messiah.  Manasse,  who  had  now  been  staying  in  Eng- 
land for  half  a  year,  began  to  feel  dismayed  at  the  ill- 
success  of  his  mission  ;  still,  he  continued  to  publish 
iiidefatigably  pamphlet  after  pamphlet,  in  which  he  re- 
futed all  the  current  accusations  against  the  Jews.  The 
best  of  all  is,  no  doubt,  an  essay  which  appeared  in  print 
in  London  in  1656,  entitled  "  Vindicice  Judpeorum,"  or 
"  a  letter  in  answer  to  certain  questions  propounded  by 
noble  and  learned  gentlemen,  touching  the  reproaching.s 
cast  on  the  nation  of  the  Jews."  This  last  pamphlet  was 
the  most  successful  of  all  his  writings  ;  it  turned  the  tide 
of  the  popular  sentiment.  Cromwell  dismissed  Manasse 
honorably,  on  February  20,  1657,  granting  him  an  annuity 
of  one  hundred  pounds  ;  and,  although  the  Jews  were  not 
admitted  by  act  of  parliament,  Cromwell  permitted  a 
great  maiiy  Spanish  Jews  to  settle  down  in  London, 
granting  them  a  piece  of  land  for  a  burial-place. 

Returning  home,  Manasse  died  on  his  way,  in  ]\Iiddle- 
borough,  in  March,  1657.  His  corpse  was  brought  to 
Amsterdam  and  buried  with  great  honors.  A  short  time 
after  his  demise,  a  Jewish  colony  was  flourishing  in 
London,  which  elected  one  of  his  best  friends,  Jacob 
Sasportas,  as  rabbi. 

Manasse  Ben  Israel,  though  he  may  not  have  been 
crammed  with  as  much  Talmudical  knowledge  as  w§re 
his  colleagues  in  Amsterdam,  or  rabbies  in  other  places, 
has,  nevertheless,  done  more  for  Jews  and  for  Judaism 
than  all  of  them  taken  together.  His  establishment  of  a 
Jewish  colony  in  Rngland  \Vas  only  one  of  his  minor  suc- 
cesses,  though   he   may   have   considered    it  the   highest 


214  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

result  of  his  life's  work.  He  reintroduced  (and  this  is 
much  more)  the  Jew  into  the  world.  He  defended  him, 
he  refuted  all  accusations  which  were  current  against 
him,  and  which  his  learned  brethren  had  neither  the 
courage  nor  the  force  to  hurl  back  at  the  accuser.  He 
established  a  reputation  for  him.  What  does  it  matter  if 
his  learning  was  defective  here  and  there,  or  if  his  views 
were  shallow  now  and  then?  He  understood  his  time, 
he  knew  how  to  utilize  given  facts ;  he  was  the  first  rabbi 
to  preach  to  the  masses  which  stood  outside  the  gates  of 
his  synagogue,  by  means  of  the  press.  He  was  an  ardent 
and  'zealous  laborer  for  the  Jewish  cause.  Even  in  his 
imperfections,  even  in  his  prejudices,  he  is  admirable  and 
lovable.  May  his  name  live  forever,  may  the  lustre  of 
his  fame  never  fade  ! 


XVII. 

BAETJCH   SPINOZA   AND   HIS   TIME 

When  you  listen  for  the  first  time  to  a  musical  compo- 
sition, 3'ou  may  become  so  favorably  impressed  with  its 
charms  that  you  will  be  ready  to  concede  to  the  com- 
[)oser  the  laurels  of  mastership.  Some  melodies  may 
cleave  so  firml}-  to  jour  memory  that  you  will  hear  them 
even  after  hours  and  days  ;  but  to  understand  and  to  appre- 
ciate the  beauty  of  a  musical  work,  it  is  necessary  that 
you  hear  it  often,  that  it  be  rendered  by  different  artists 
and  interpreted  by  different  directors.  The  oftener  you 
listen,  the  more  familiar  you  grow  with  its  passages,  the 
less  attention  you.  will  need  to  bestow  upon  the  leading 
thoughts  of  the  composer,  the  more  will  you  be  enabled 
to  enjoy  the  details  of  the  work,  and  your  ear  will  catch 
•here  and  there  a  chord  which  before  had  escaped  your 
attention,  in  which,  however,  the  genius  of  the  musician 
has  sought  and  found  expression.  The  eye  enjoys  in  this 
respect  no  privileges.  When  you  look  at  a  picture  for 
the  first  time,  you  may  immediately  decide  whether  the 
painting  is  good  or  not.  Some  figures,  some  appoint- 
ments, some  shades  may  immediately  fascinate  you  ;  but 
not  until  you  have  looked  at  the  picture  repeatedly  will 
yon  be  able  to  fully  appreciate  the  genius  of  the  painter, 
wliicli  not  seldom  will  show  itself  rather  in  the  minute 
details  of  the  design  than  in  the  conception  of  the  sub- 
ject itself.     As  good  uiut;ic  will  never  tire  you,  so  can  you 

215 


216  DISSOLVING    VIE^YS 

look  repeatedly  at  a  good  picture  with  undiminished 
interest,  because  the  oftener  you  stand  before  it  the  more 
of  its  charms  you  will  discover. 

Standing  before  our  dissolving  pictures,  cleansing  them 
of  the'  dust  of  ages,  the  student  of  history  cannot  fail  to 
observe  the  many  beautiful  details  which,  of  necessity 
must  be  lost  to  the  eye  of  the  average  spectator. 

The  middle  and  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century 
offers  one  of  the  most  interesting  pictures  to  the  student 
of  history.  It  is  a  picture  in  the  style  of  the  contempo- 
rary master,  Rembrandt ;  not  too  bright  to  do  away  with  all 
individual  imagination,  and  not  too  dark  to  destroy  real- 
ism, it  looks  like  a  landscape  from  which  the  mist  of  the 
early  morning  is  lifting ;  you  see  the  houses,  the  trees,  the 
fields  and  mountains,  the  shining  rivulet,  the  flocks  seek- 
ing  the  pasture,  as  through  a  veil ;  but  this  overhanging 
haze  idealizes  every  object  and  lends  it  an  additional 
charm.  -In  my  last  lecture,  one  of  the  representatives  of 
that  age,  Manasse  Ben  Israel,  absorbed  our  attention ;  but 
he  is  by  no  means  the  only  object  which  the  frame  of  that 
historical  period  encompasses.  Light  was  then  struggling 
with  darkness,  and  the  two  antagonistic  forces  wrestling 
for  existence  were  mirrored  in  the  extremes  which  then 
stood  side  by  side,  touching  each  other.  More  than  ever 
before  are  we  startled  by  the  gross  superstition  which 
then  prevailed,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  undisguised 
atheism  which  manifested  itself,  on  the  other.  Credulity 
here  and  eager  research  there.  In  one  corner  of  our 
picture  we  behold  still  the  blazing  pyres  with  hundreds 
of  Maranos  upon  them,  sacrificing  their  lives  for  their 
conviction,  and  our  whole  heart  goes  out  to  the  poor  in- 
nocent men  and  women  who  died  as  martyrs  for  the  prin- 
ciple of  liberty  of  conscience.     But  lo  and  behold !  the 


BARUCH    SPINOZA    AND    HIS    TIME  217 

same  Maranos  who  were  tleniandiiig  liberty  of  con- 
science for  themselves  are  persecuting  one  another  with 
similar  fury  on  the  opposite  corner  of  our  picture.  They 
seem  to  have  foi-gotten  their  own  agonies,  and  endeavor  to 
compel  their  own  countrymen,  Da  Costa  and  Spinoza,  to 
subscribe  to  their  superstition,  by  tortures  as  cruel  as  were 
those  of  which  the  Inquisition  had  made  use.  The  in- 
quisitor had  destroyed  life  with  one  blow,  but  he  allowed  to 
the  sufferer  at  least  the  glorious  crown  of  martyrdom  in 
exchange  for  his  sufferings ;  the  Jewish  authorities  in 
Amsterdam  killed  their  victims  by  the  slower  jjrocess  of 
isolation.  Througli  their  bulls  of  excommunication  they 
severed  all  the  bonds  by  which  a  human  being  is  tied  to 
society.  They  robbed  him  of  a  father's  care,  a  nutther's 
love,  a  wife's  affection,  a  brother's  or  sister's  friendship. 
The  column  thus  deprived  of  its  pedestal  was  bound  to 
fall  ;  the  plant  thus  robbed  of  its  roots  must  wither :  the 
heretic  who  was  struck  by  the  flash  of  the  ban  had  to  die 
ingloriously,  ignominiously.  Uriel  Da  Costa  was  driven 
into  suicide  ;  Spinoza,  too,  died  prematurely.  On  one  side 
of  our  picture  we  behold  Maranos  escaping  from  Spain 
in  order  to  join  Judaism,  on  the  other  we  behold  men 
leaving  their  inherited  religion  in  disgust.  On  one  side 
we  find  our  ancestors  expecting  a  Messiah,  straining  eveiy 
nerve  to  accelerate  his  coming,  and,  in  fact,  hailing  with 
joy  any  impostor  who  assumed  that  r61e  ;  on  the  other  we 
find  one  of  their  most  talented  members  striking  at  the 
very  foundations,  at  the  very  corner-stone,  upon  which 
their  religion  rested.  Can  the  discord  of  opinions  wlilch 
then  prevailed,  the  combat  between  light  and  darkness 
which  then  was  in- its  height,  be  better  represented  than 
by  the  two  mark-stones,  Sabbathai  Zwi,  the  last  would- 
be  Messiah,  and  Baruch  Spinoza,  the  great  philosopher? 


218  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

How  could  the  same  nation  in  the  same  century  produce 
two  men  of  such  divergent  characters  as  were  these  two 
persons?  The  riddle  can  be  solved  only  by  taking  into 
account  the  state  of  mental  fermentation  through  which 
the  European  nations  were  then  passing.  The  night  had 
not  yet  vanished,  but  was  fading  away  before  the  light 
which  had  not  yet  appeared,  but  was  coming. 

Baruch  S^ainoza,  the  great  philosoplier,  who  still  governs 
the  realm  of  thought  like  a  king,  has  been  made  the  hero 
of  a  romance  by  one  of  our  most  notable  poets,  and  to 
the  many  he  is  better  known  tln-ough  Berthold  Auerbach 
than  through  his  own  philosophical  works.  We  may  feel 
indebted  to  the  poet  wlio  placed  upon  the  neglected  tomb 
of  Spinoza  a  monument  through  which  that  spot  was 
marked  forever,  and  since  then  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  crowds  who  pass  by.  We  may  be  thankful  to  Auer- 
bach for  the  love  which  he  placed  as  a  reflector  behind 
the  light  which  he  shed  upon  the  life  and  character  of  the 
great  philosopher ;  but  in  a  purely  hisk)rical  researcli  we 
must  guard  ourselves  against  fiction,  no  n:iatter  from  what 
source  it  comes,  and  take  the  man  as  he  is,  not  as  we 
would  like  to  have  him  nor  as  some  poet  has  made  him 
to  appear.  Auerbach  has  never  clainied  authenticity 
for  his  biography  of  Spinoza ;  he  meant  to  write  a  novel 
to  amuse  his  readers,  and  he  made  Spinoza  the  hero  of 
it,  weaving  truth  and  fiction  into  a  canvas  of  rare  beaut}'. 
It  is  not  my  object  to  unravel  his  web,  I  can  only  warn 
you  not  to  take  for  truth  what  was  intended  for  poetic 
embellishment.  The  love-affair  with  Van  der  Enden's 
pretty  and  intelligent  daughter  and  his  rivalry  with  Ker- 
kering  belong  entirely  .to  the  department  of  fiction. 
The  marriage  record,  which  is  still  extant,  shows  that 
Clara  Maria  was  twenty-seven  years  old  when  she  mar- 


BARUCH    SPINOZA    AND    HIS   TIME  219 

ried  Kerkeriiig,  in  1671.  Spinoza  left  Amsterdam  in  1656, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-four  years,  and  it  is  hardly  credible 
that  a  young  man  of  Spinoza's  character  should  have  en- 
tertained a  real  love-affair  with  a  girl  of  not  more  than 
twelve  years  of  age.  Those,  therefore,  who  sympathize 
with  Spinoza  merely  on  account  of  the  unsurmountable 
barriers  which  separated  him  from  the  girl  he  loved  so 
sincerely,  and  who  admire  his  self-sacrifice,  must  not  be 
'dngry  with  me  when  I  rob  them  of  their  illusion. 

Baruch  Spinoza  was  born  in  1632.  It  is  not  yet  suffi- 
ciently cleared  up  whether  he  was  born  in  Spain  or  in 
Amsterdam.  Some  remarks  in  one  of  his  letters  may  be 
interpreted  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  made  to  appear  as  if 
he  had  witnessed  an  aiito-da-fe  as  late  as  1644,  i.  e .,  at  the 
age  of  twelve  }^ars.  His  parents  had  been  Maranos  who 
had  managed  to  escape  to  Amsterdam.  They  were  plain 
people,  without  any  of  those  traits  which  foreboded  the 
destiny  of  their  descendant ;  they  had  no  higher  aspira- 
tions than  to  support  themselves  decent!}',  and  all  their 
thoughts  turned  about  the  petty  trade  by  which  they 
earned  a  livelihood.  Baruch,  like  other  Jewish  children, 
frequented  the  school  which  had  then  been  recently  estab- 
lished by  the  flourishing  Jewish  settlement  of  Amsterdam, 
and  the  three  rabbles,  Aboab,  Morteira,  and  Manasse  Ben 
Israel,  were  his  teachers.  Manasse  seems  to  have  been  his 
favorite  and  to  have  returned  the  affection  of  his  pupil. 
In  this  rabbinical  school  nothing  was  taught  that  could 
injure  the  orthodox  faith  of  the  pupil.  Aboab  and  Mor- 
teira were  fanatic  adherents  of  that  narrow  Judaism  which 
had  been  established  through  the  Cabalah,  and  had  been 
fortified  by  Joseph  Karo's  Shulchan  Aruch,  and  Man- 
asse, the  most  liberal  of  the  triumvirate,  was  a  stanch 
supporter  of  Bible,  Talmud,  and  Cabalah,  and  a  sanguine 


220  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

believer  in  the  near  advent  of  the  Messiah.  Whence  did 
Spinoza  come,  therefore,  to  his  ultra-liberal  views?  It 
has  always  been  a  mystery  to  me  how  new  and  liberal 
ideas  are  conceived.  If  our  early  training  and  surround- 
ings should  account  for  our  views,  there  would  be  hardly 
any  progress.  The  most  liberal  thinkers,  with  few  ex- 
ceptions, have  come  from  the  most  orthodox  homes.  They 
had  seen  nothing  that  could  stir  up  doubts  in  them,  and 
yet  not  one,  but  almost  all,  who  have  left  a  description  of 
the  radical  change  that  had  taken  place  in  their  thoughts, 
have  affirmed  that  in  their  early  youth  they  already  began 
to  doubt,  to  think  for  themselves,  to  leave  the  customary 
grooves,  and  finally  to  disagree  with  all  those  whom  they 
had  been  accustomed  to  respect  and  revere.  The  strug- 
gles which  their  souls  underwent  in  their  vain  endeavor 
to  remain  within  the  fold,  while  a  still  stronger  force  lifted 
them  beyond  the  pale,  is  told  in  vivid  language  by  them 
and  is  found  to  have  been  the  same  with  all.  If  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  revelation,  it  may  be  discerned  in  the  rise 
of  liberal  and  progressive  ideas  in  the  brain  of  the  child 
in  spite  of  its  conservative  surroundings. 

The  fount  from  which  Spinoza  drank  was  not  deep 
enough  to  slake  his  thirst  of  knowledge.  He  began  to 
read  whatever  books  he  could  reach.  Ebn  Ezra  and 
Maimonides  attracted  him,  and  even  the  Cabalah,  into 
which  i\boab  introduced  him,  had  temporarily  some 
charms  for  him.  He  began  to  doubt,  to  question,  and  to 
argue.  It  is  said  that  in  his  fifteenth  year  he  frequently 
embarrassed  his  teachers  by  questions  which  they  could 
not  answer, , and  by  aiguments  which  they  could  not 
shake.  Failing  to  obtain  a  satisfactory  answer  to  his 
questions  in  these  quarters,  he  sought  for  it  elsewhere. 
He  studied  Latin   and   penetrated  into   the   most  secret 


BARUCH    SPINOZA    AND    HIS    TIME  221 

recesses  which  that  grand  literature  contains.  In  order 
to  perfect  himself  in  this  study,  he  took  lessons  from  a 
renowned  Christian  physician,  Franz  Von  Enden.  In 
his  house  he  became  acquainted  with  other  young  men  of 
Christian  birth,  all  of  whom  had  been  already  infected 
with  the  skeptical  spirit  of  their  time.  Physiology,  math- 
ematics, and  philosophy,  then  revived  by  Descartes, 
widened  his  mental  horizon.  Never  were  the  reasoning 
powers  more  strongly  developed  in  a  person  than  they 
were  in  Spinoza.  Whatever  could  not  stand  the  test  of 
reason,  Avhatever  could  not  prcjve  its  title  to  existence 
before  this  tribunal,  was  branded  by  him  as  superstition. 
It  became  only  a  question  of  time  when  he  should  break 
loose  from  the  Judaism  which  he  had  inherited.  He 
began  by  denouncing  the  Cabalah  as  a  humbug,  pro- 
ceeded to  denude  the  Talmud  of  its  authority,  and  ended 
by  placing  the  Bible  on  a  level  with  other  books  written 
by  men,  denying  its  divine  origin.  How  hard  his  strug- 
gle may  have  been  before  he  gave  up  all  those  rites  and 
ceremonies  to  which  an  early  training  had  accustomed 
him  can  better  be  imagined  than  described.  Many  are 
able  to  act  in  disharmony  with  their  thoughts  ;  Spinoza 
could  not,  his  inner  and  outer  life  had  to  conform.  The 
Judaism  of  his  time  could  no  longer  satisfy  him,  neither 
could  Christianity.  He  left  the  one  without  joining  the 
other,  satisfied  to  live  by  himself  and  to  enjoy  his  liberty 
of  conscience.  Truth,  however,  like  fire,  needs  nouHsh- 
ment.  If  it  exists,  it  must  spread  and  inflame  all  things 
within  its  touch.  No  man  can  keep  convictions  to  him- 
self at  which  he  lias  arrived  after  many  struggles.  He 
is  bound  to  demonstrate  what  he  thinks  is  truth.  The 
most  radical  thinker,  therefore,  who  demands  liberty 
of  conscience,  is  far  from  granting  the  same   liboity  to 


222  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

others.  True,  he  may  not  force  his  views  upon  others  with 
the  edge  of  the  sword  ;  true,  he  may  not  build  pyres  and 
burn  those  with  whom  he  disagrees,  but  he  will  neverthe- 
less attack  them  with  his  arguments.  It  is  in  the  nature 
of  truth  to  fight  fallacy,  as  it  is  in  the  nature  of  a  cat  to 
wage  war  on  mice.  Sj^inoza  could  not  keep  quiet,  he 
began  to  teach  with  the  intent  to  spread  his  ideas. 
Young  men  began  to  flock  around  him,  and  they  drank  in 
eagerly  the  heresies  which  he  taught.  The  Jewish  author- 
ities of  Amsterdam  were  then  peculiarly  situated.  Hun- 
dreds of  Maranos  were  then  suffering  martyrdom  for  the 
sake  of  Judaism.  They  left  prosperous  situations,  happy 
homes,  pleasant  family  connections,  and  came  to  Amster- 
dam for  the  sake  of  turning  Jews  again.  The  arrivjil  of 
the  Messiah,  too,  was  daily  expected,  and  the  united 
efforts  of  all  Israelites  were  demanded  to  accelerate  his 
coming.  Now  a  young  man  rises,  defies  their  religion 
and  ridicules  their  hopes.  If  Judaism  was  not  the  true 
and  only  religion,  if  God  had  not  manifested  his  will  in 
the  way  they  had  been  taught,  if  there  had  been  no  reve- 
lation, no  prophetism,  if  the  Messiah  was  a  myth,  why 
should  the  Maranos  sacrifice  their  lives,  why  should  they 
leave  their  prosperous  homes  for  an  uncertain  future,  why 
should  they  burden  themselves  with  all  the  difficult  duties 
which  then  were  required  of  the  Jews?  And  still  more 
was  at  stake :  the  Messiah,  who  might  behold  the  discredit 
in  which  he  was  held  by  these  young  men,  might  turn 
his  back  upon  them  and  delay  his  coming  for  a  few  more 
centuries  ;  should  they  all  suffer  for  the  sake  of  the  few  ? 
Should  they  allow  ideas  to  spread  which  would  endanger 
their  whole  future  ?  Skepticism  and  heresy  were  to  be 
suppressed  at  any  cost.  Most  of  the  Jews  of  Holland 
had   come   from   S^Dain ;  they   had   passed   there   through 


BARUCH   SPINOZA    AND    HIS   TIME  223 

a  good  school,  they  had  had  excellent  instructors  in  the 
inquisitors.  They  established  a  Jewish  inquisition. 
They  had  once  tried  the  force  of  the  Cherem,  the  ban 
against  an  infidel,  against  Uriel  Da  Costa,  and  it  liad 
crushed  him.  They  tried  it  again.  The  minor  degree  of 
the'  ban  was  hurled  against  Spin6za ;  that  is,  he  was  ex- 
cluded from  all  communion  with  Jews  for  thirty  days. 
He  cared  little.  Attempts  were  now  made  to  bribe  him 
into  silence  ;  and  an  annual  pension  of  one  thousand 
guilders  w'as  offered  him  if  he  would  cease  his  attacks 
upon  Judaism,  and  would  occasionally  visit  the  syna- 
gogue. He  rejected  the  offer  with  scorn.  A  fanatic 
attempted  to  murder  him  ;  but  by  a  lucky  motion  he 
avoided  the  point  of  the  dagger,  and  only  his  coat  was 
pierced.  Fearing  for  his  life,  he  withdrew  to  a  vilUige  in 
the  neighborhood ;  but  his  love  for  Judaism  and  for  his 
coreligionists  was  surely  not  strengthened  by  these  events. 
On  July  27,  1656,  the  great  Cherem  was  pronounced 
against  him,  with  all  the  sanctimoniousness  which  only 
the  descendants  of  Maranos  could  invent  and  indulge. 
Saul  Morteira  and  Aboab  presided,  Manasse  being  then 
absent  in  England.  The  lightning  of  the  ban  had,  how- 
ever, no  force  on  him :  it  passed  by  him  as  had  before  the 
dagger  of  the  assassin  ;  it  scorched  his  garment,  but  failed 
to  hit  him.  Spinoza  was  not  present  in  Amsterdam  when 
the  ceremony  took  place ;  he  cared  little  for  intercourse 
with  coreligionists,  but  preferred  solitude.  He  remained 
in  the  village  to  which  he  had  withdrawn  for  several 
years,  supporting  himself  b}'  grinding  optical  lenses,  and 
devoted  his  whole  life  to  study,  to  the  preparation  and 
publication  of  his  works,  which  contained  a  system  of 
philosophy  which  so  far  has  never  been  shaken. 

He  never  married,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  ever 


224  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

intended  to  give  up  the  freedom  of  his  scholarly  life  for 
the  blessings  of  matrimony.  He  refused  aid  even  from 
friends,  and  died  like  a  true  philosopher,  quietly  and 
peacefully,  on  February  21,  1677. 

To  discnss  his  philosophy  would  require  years,  not  hours. 
One  of  his  arguments  rests  firmly  upon  the  other  ;  there 
is  no  break  in  his  chain  of  conclusions.  Its  only  vulner- 
able place  is  the  very  first  stone  of  the  building.  If  his 
axioms,  his  premises,  are  correct,  then,  of  course,  his 
building  is  impregnable ;  if  they  are  untrue,  the  struct- 
ure must  fall.  God  and  the  universe  are  to  him  a  unity  ; 
he  can  as  little  think  of  a  God  without  a  universe  as  of 
a  universe  without  a  God.  They  both  are  inseparably 
one.  His  God,  thus  devoid  of  individual  qualities,  has 
neither  will  nor  volition ;  he  cannot  change  the  tiniest 
thing  at  his  option  ;  and  his  God-saturated  universe  exists 
and  moves  on  under  the  same  laws  from  eternity  to  eter- 
nity. In  his  philosophy  there  is  room  neither  for  reward 
nor  for  punishment,  save  that  every  act  is  followed  by 
consequences  which  are  good  or  bad  in  correspondence 
with  the  act  itself.  He  makes  "  might "  the  basis  of  his 
ethics,  and  holds  that  might  alone  can  prescribe  and  define 
what  is  right.  The  state  or  the  commonwealth  which  rep- 
resents the  sum  total  of  the  "might  "  of  its  members  has, 
therefore,  "  the  right  "  to  declare  by  its  laws  what  is  good 
or  bad,  right  or  wrong.  Laws  must  be  implicitly  obeyed 
even  at  the  inconvenience  of  the  individuals.  Spinoza 
does  not  see  that  if  these  sequences  are  followed  up  he 
ought  to  have  conformed  with  the  demands  of  the  Jewish 
authorities.  Although  he  denounced  Christianity  as  he 
did  Judaism,  he  apparently  made  some  concessions  to  it, 
which  partly  originated  in  his  hostile  feelings  toward  his 
former  brethren,  and  partly  in  his  lack  of  historical  knowl- 


BAEUCH   SPINOZA   AND   HIS   TIME  225 

edge.  As  far  as  mathematics  and  stern  logic  can  reach, 
so  far  are  his  arguments  and  conclusions  impregnable;  but 
whenever  or  wherever  he  ventures  to  tread  upon  the  do- 
main of  history,  his  power  wanes  —  in  fact,  he  knew  noth- 
ing of  history.  That  study  was  then  in  its  infancy  and 
almost  unknown.  It  being  a  fact,  therefore,  that  he  was 
not  familiar  with  the  most  elementary  historical  facts,  his 
conclusions,  based  upon  erroneous  premises,  were  many 
times  misleading.  He  knew  nothing  of  historical  evolu- 
tion, of  historical  development ;  he  failed  to  understand 
Judaism,  because  he  had  no  knowledge  of  its  history. 
Judaism  had  for  him  no  other  history  than  that  which  he 
had  found  in  the  Bible  ;  after  the  Jews  had  lost  their 
national  life,  after  "  miglit "  had  been  taken  from  them, 
they  had  no  further  claim  to  right,  or  therefore  to  exist- 
ence. If  his  contemporaries  had  understood  his  writings 
and  his  philosophy,  Judaism  would  have  received  a  shock 
which  might  have  destroyed  it  utterly ;  but  he  was  not 
understood,  and  the  masses  could  not  follow  his  argu- 
ments and  mathematical  deductions. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  Jews  are  so  tied  to- 
gether by  bonds  of  reciprocity  that  they  are  not  only  held 
responsible  for  one  another  but  voluntarily  claim  rela- 
tionship in  the  most  doubtful  cases.  A  man  who  may 
hold  far  different  religious  views  from  ours  will  neverthe- 
less claim  relationship  with  us  ;  and  if  an  Israelite  any- 
where in  the  land  should  commit  a  crime,  we  all  would 
feel  the  stigma.  A  man  who  may  never  associate  witli 
us,  who  may  never  have  worshipped  with  us,  will,  never- 
theless, be  claimed  as  one  of  us  if  he  has  simply  been 
born  of  a  Jewish  mother,  and  has  accomplished  any- 
thing of  which  he  oi:  we  can  be  proud.  Spinoza  had 
been    excommunicated    In-    his    contemporaries,   and    he 


226  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

has  proven  by  his  own  writings  that  he  was  as  far  from 
Judaism  as  heaven  is  from  earth ;  still,  there  is  not  a  Jew 
who  does  not  point  with  pride  to  Baruch  Spinoza,  the 
greatest  philosopher  of  modern  times,  the  man  whose 
bust  is  placed  by  the  side  of  that  of  Kant,  Fichte,  or 
Spencer,  claiming  him  as  a  brother. 

Now,  upon  what  ground  do  we  rest  with  regard  to  all 
those  who  either  stand  below  or  above  us  ?  If  we  were  a 
nation,  we  would  have  a  right  to  qualify  a  person  by  say- 
ing that  he  belongs  politically  to  our  state  or  country,  as 
a  German,  for  example,  may  claim  another  German  as  his 
fellow-citizen,  no  matter  how  widely  they  may  differ  in 
their  political  views.  But  we  are  no  nation,  like  the 
Germans,  the  English,  or  the  French.  We  are  a  religious 
community,  we  are  a  sect  that  holds  certain  views  in 
regard  to  the  relation  of  man  to  God  and  the  surround- 
ing world.  Is  it  not,  therefore,  a  co7iditio  sine  qua  non 
that  a  man  must  hold  the  same  views  as  we  do  before 
we  may  have  a  rightful  claim  on  him,  or  he  on  us,  as 
coreligionists  ? 

The  cause  of  this  apparent  anomaly  is  that  Judaism  is 
the  religion  of  humanity ;  that  it  is  so  elastic  that  it  can 
encompass  the  whole  earth  ;  that  its  principles  are  so  gen- 
eral that  a  thousand  subdivisions  may  find  room  in  them. 
Spinoza,  with  all  his  enmity  to  Judaism,  was  a  Jew  in  the 
full  sense  of  the  word.  What  he  fought  against,  what  he 
opposed,  and  what  he  disowned  as  Judaism,  was  not  Juda- 
ism in  general ;  it  was  merely  the  Judaism  of  his  time, 
the  narrow  Judaism  of  Amsterdam,  as  he  knew  it.  He 
himself  helped  to  develop  Judaism.  He  never  accepted  a 
multitude  of  gods,  not  even  a  trinity,  nor  did  dualism 
satisfy  him.  His  "  Echod  "  circumscribed  God  and  the 
whole  universe ;  his  God  surely  was  one,  one  with   the 


BARUCH   SPINOZA   AND   HIS   TIME  227 

world,  one  with  tlie  smallest  of  its  forms.  His  apparent 
pantheism  is  puritied  Judaism.  To  him  humanity  was 
one  large  brotherhood,  and  love,  the  great  principle  of 
Judaism,  found  in  him  the  ablest  and  noblest  advocate. 
His  only  misfortune  was  that  he  lived  in  the  seventeenth 
and  not  in  the  nineteenth  century.  He  was  ahead  of 
his  time,  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  few  passages  in 
which  he  blundered  for  want  of  historical  knowledge,  I 
think  that  modern  Judaism  could  subscribe  to  most  of  his 
teachings,  and,  therefore,  we  can  call  him  by  riglit  one 
of  us. 

How  far  Spinoza  was  ahead  of  his  time,  and  how  little 
he  was  understood,  even  long  after  his  death,  by  the  Jews, 
can  be  seen  in  the  fact  that,  after  the  ignominious  death 
of  Sabbathai  Zwi,  many  still  remained  faithful  to  the  old 
super*jtition,  and  believ^ed  him  to  have  been  the  Messiah. 
The  days  of  the  Cabalah,  however,  were  numbered,  and 
its  death-rattle  can  be  heard  in  the  remarkable  contro- 
versy which  took  place  between  Rabbi  Jonathan  Eibe- 
schuetz,  of  Altona,  and  his  colleagues.  I  shall  make  it  the 
topic  of  my  next  lecture. 


XVIII. 

JONATHAN   EIBESCHUETZ   AND   HIS   TIME 

Whenever  a  sickness  befalls  us,  our  whole  system  is 
thrown  into  a  state  of  confusion.  Its  different  organs 
refuse  to  act  for  want  of  that  nourishment  which  is 
brought  to  them  in  a  healthy  state  and  under  regular 
conditions.  Tlie  chemical  forces  tending  to  dissolve  and 
disorganize  the  body  are  pitted  against  the  life-preserving 
powers,  and  they  wrestle  with  each  other  until  a  crisis  is 
reached  in  which  the  one  or  the  other  proves  its  superi- 
ority. Either  death  occurs  and  the  disintegrating  forces 
are  set  free  to  continue  their  destructive  work,  or  the 
vital  forces  defeat  their  antagonists,  and  reinstate  order 
in  the  functions  of  every  organ  which  the  disease  has 
interrupted.  While  during  this  struggle  the  patient 
sometimes  shows  a  strength  far  superior  even  to  that 
which  he  possesses  in  health,  he  falls  into  a  gtate  of  pros- 
tration and  utter  feebleness  after  the  crisis  is  passed.  The 
work  of  the  intelligent  physician  is  then  to  aid  nature  in 
her  attempt  to  mend  and  to  regain  strength  after  the 
elements  of  disorder  have  been  removed  and  order  estab- 
lished. During  that  time  of  weakness  and  helplessness 
our  sympathy  with  the  patient  reaches  the  highest  point, 
and  we  bestow  then,  as  a  rule,  more  love  and  care  upon 
him  than  we  did  during  the  time  when  life  and  death 
were  trembling  in  the  balance. 

Judaism  had  for  a  long  time  been    ailing.     We  bave 

228 


JONATHAN    EIBKS('HUhTZ    AND    HIS   TIME  229 

observed  liow  generation  after  genenitiou  lias  diffused 
the  germs  of  a  disease  in  its  organization.  We  have 
observed  how,  in  the  attempt  to  prove  the  inherited  liter- 
ar}^  treasure  to  be  of  superhuman  origin,  it  liad  wandered 
from  the  road  of  reason  and  had  U)st  ilself  in  the  marslies 
of  mysticism  ;  we  have  observed  that,  to  make  up  for  the 
miseries  whicli  our  ancestors  suffered  from  persecution, 
they  intoxicated  themselves  with  the  opium  of  the  Cab- 
alah,  and  how  this  study  had  disintegrated  the  whole 
religious  system ;  we  have  observed  how  Judaism,  strong, 
rational,  and  world-embracing  before,  was  by  degrees  re- 
duced to  the  narrow,  superstitious,  formality-loving  Juda- 
ism of  the  seventeenth  century.  A  crisis  was  reached 
when  the  last  would-be  Messiah,  Sabbathai  Zwi,  was 
proved  an  impostor,  and  when,  for  the  last  time,  the 
hope  of  a  national  resurrection  was  disappointed.  The 
vital  forces  of  Judaism  showed  then  their  superiority. 
Sabbathai  was  denounced  by  the  great  majority  of  the 
Jews,  and  his  teachings,  as  well  as  his  followers,  were 
put  under  the  ban.  Nay,  more  ;  here  and  there,  now  and 
then,  a  man  would  dare  to  express  himself  in  opposition 
to  the  Cabalah  itself,  branding  the  science  as  an  imposi- 
tion. The  danger  that  Jewish  rationality  was  to  be  lost 
in  mysticism,  that  its  monistic  tendenc}-  should  give  way 
to  the  doctrine  of  a  trinity  or  a  dualism  in  the  Godhead, 
was  averted ;  but,  bruised  and  lacerated  as  was  the  Jewish 
body  from  the  ill-treatment  which  it  had  received  for  so 
many  centuries  from  its  enemies,  and  exhausted  from 
the  struggle  of  antagonistic  forces  which  had  taken 
place  within,  and  which  had  been  ended  by  the  crisis 
which  I  have  just  mentioned,  Judaism  was  left  in  the 
most  miserable  condition  it  ever  experienced.  Weak 
and  feeble  externally  and  internally,  the  life  of  Judaism 


230  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

during  the  eighteenth  century  excites  our  deepest  com- 
miseration and  stirs  up  our  most  sincere  sympathy. 
Would  we  blame  a  person  who  has  just  passed  through 
a  severe  crisis  and  is  left  in  a  helpless  condition,  because 
he  does  not  bestir  himself  and  assume  his  daily  duties  after 
his  S3''stem  is  actually  again  in  regular  order  ?  Would 
you  even  deem  it  necessary  to  offer  an  excuse  for  his 
apparent  indolence?  Indeed  not!  and  thus  ought  we 
neither  to  censure  nor  excuse  that  century  from  which  we 
have  inherited  many  of  our  ideas,  for  its  weakness  and 
unreadiness  to  assume  work. 

Whatever  prejudices  still  prevail  against  us,  they  are 
not  due  to  a  difference  of  opinion  which  may  have  oc- 
curred eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  They  all  came  from 
the  unfortunate  conditit)n  of  the  Judaism  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. That  sj'stem  of  religion  was  indeed  no  religion, 
and  we  can  hardly  blame  Heinrich  Heine,  who  seems  to 
have  known  only  that  sort  of  Judaism,  when  he  utters  the 
remarkable  and  since  then  often  repeated  sentence : 
"  Judaism  is  no  religion,  it  is  a  misfortune."  Never  at 
any  period  of  Jewish  history  do  we  find  our  ancestors 
more  bigoted,  more  superstitious,  more  narrow-minded, 
than  during  the  eighteenth  century.  But  their  bigotism, 
their  superstition,  their  narrow-mindedness,  came  from  a 
state  of  exhaustion,  came  merely  from  their  weakness. 
Almost  all  that  has  reached  us  as  ortliodox  Judaism  is 
the  product  of  that  one  century,  and,  thanks  to  God,  the 
nineteenth  centuiy  has  made  amends  for  the  eighteenth. 
After  the  recovery  of  health  and  strength  we  have  imme- 
diately set  to  work  and  have  paid  the  doctor  bills,  with 
all  the  other  debts  incurred. 

A  Jewish  proverb,  which  sounds  much  better  in  its 
Hebrew  alliteration  than  in  any  of  its  translations,  says, 


JONATHAN    ElBESCIIUETZ    AND    HIS   TIME  231 

"  We  may  get  an  insiglit  into  tlie  true  character  of  a  man 
by  observing  three  tilings:  how  he  spends  his  money,  how 
he  acts  wlien  under  the  inlluence  of  the  wine-cup,  and 
how  lie  behaves  when  his  anger  is  aroused."  Indeed, 
small  men  will  quarrel  about  small  matters,  and  we  may, 
therefore,  easil}^  j^tlge  the  condition  of  an  age  after  we 
have  examined  the  objects  over  which  people  were  then 
wrangling.  To  illustrate  my  assertion,  let  me  direct  your 
attention  to  the  difference  in  the  objects  over  which  Jew- 
ish theologians  were  quarrelling  twenty-five  years  ago  and 
are  disputing  to-day.  Twenty-five  years  ago  a  rabbi 
would  win  laurels  when  he  either  attacked  or  defended 
the  custom  of  having  the  head  covered  in  the  sj-nagogue, 
whether  or  not  this  or  that  passage  in  the  prayer-book 
should  be  recited,  or  whether  or  not  men  and  women 
should  occupy  seats  in  the  same  pew.  To-day  all  such 
controversies  are  ignored  ;  we  look  at  them  with  a  smile, 
as  insignificant,  while  we  examine  and  discuss  the  very 
philosophy  of  our  religion  and  lay  our  fingers  upon  sub- 
jects which,  even  ten  years  ago,  no  one  would  have  dared 
to  touch. 

The  theological  quarrels  which  set  on  fire  and  almost 
divided  the  Jews  of  the  eighteenth  century  into  two 
camps  will,  therefore,  be  indicative  of  tlie  compass  by 
which  their  mental  activity  was  limited  ;  and  although  we 
shall  derive  little  satisfaction,  and  our  pride  will  be  rather 
humiliated  than  aroused  by  such  a  research,  we  may -learn 
from  the  controversy  between  the  renowned  Rabbi  Jona- 
than Eibeschuetz  and  his  colleagues  what  the  general 
status  of  the  religious  affairs  then  was  among  the  Jews  of 
Europe. 

Jonathan  Eibeschuetz  was  born  in  1690,  somewhere  in 
Poland.     His  father,  Nathan  Nata,  a  man  of   great    Tal- 


232  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

mudical  knowledge,  had  been  chosen  rabbi  in  Eibeschuetz, 
•  a  small  town  in  Moravia.  The  Jews  had  then  no  other 
names  than  those  which  occurred  in  the  Bible  or  in  Tal- 
mudical  writings,  and  made,  therefore,  frequent  use  of  the 
name  of  the  place  from  which  they  came,  as  a  mark  of 
identification.  When  young  Jonathan  came,  in  1711,  to 
Prague,  the  capital  of  Bohemia,  partly  to  continue  his 
studies  and  partly  to  teach,  he  was  generally  known  as 
Jonathan  Eibeschuetz.  His  early  training  was  tliat  cus- 
tomary among  all  Jews  of  that  period,  Bible,  Talmud, 
and  Cabalah.  He  never  studied  any  other  language, 
nor  was  he  familiar  with  any  other  branch  of  learning. 
He  was  rather  a  conceited  man,  and,  with  his  limited 
knowledge,  he  pretended  to  have  a  monopoly  of  all 
branches  of  science.  To  study  the  German  language, 
yea,  even  to  speak  it  correctly,  was  then  considered  by 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Ghetto  as  an  irreligious  act,  as  an 
innovation  which  would  tend  to  destroy  their  religion. 
At  that  time  they  formed  a  world  within  the  world, 
a  small,  disconnected  community  within  every  commu- 
nity. Every  congregation  was  sovereign,  and,  although 
it  depended  greatly  upon  the  advice  of  the  rabbi,  the 
word  of  any  learned  man  had  the  same  force  with  it 
as  that  of  their  leader,  and  not  seldom  did  such  a  man 
rather  watch  the  actions  of  the  rabbi  than  allow  his  to 
be  watched  by  him.  The  influence  of  the  rabbi  began 
at  that  period  to  decline,  in  the  same  proportion  as  the 
circle  of  his  usefulness  began  to  contract.  The  new  day 
had  already  begun,  and  the  usefulness  of  a  rabbi  had, 
to  a  great  extent,  been  diminished  by  the  right  of  tlie 
defendant  to  appeal  from  his  decision  to  the  court  of  the 
land.  The  old  Talmudical  laws,  intended  for  practical 
use  a  tliousand  years  ago,  would,  furthermore,  not  fit  the 


JONATHAN    ElBESCHUETZ   AND    HIS    TIME  233 

new  conditions,  and  it  required  no  small  degree  of  rab- 
binical ingenuity  to  make  them  lit.  The  ban,  too,  had 
lost  most  of  its  force  ;  it  was  feared  no  longer,  and, 
whereas  every  Jewish  Talmudist  assumed  the  right  to 
hurl  it  against  any  one  with  whom  he  disagi-eed,  the 
whole  Jewish  community  was  not  seldom  excommuni- 
cated, one  half  imposing  the  ban  upon  the  other.  Thus 
used,  it  could  not  fail  to  become  ridiculous  and  obsolete. 
The  functions  of  a  rabbi  were  then  to  decide  in  regard  to 
the  great  and  all-absorbing  question,  what  was  lawfully 
permitted  to  be  eaten,  and  what  not ;  to  preside  over  an 
occasional  Talmudical  debate,  and,  furthermore,  to  teach 
the  young.  Young  men  would  wander  from  city  to  city, 
from  teacher  to  teacher,  to  enrich  their  Talmudical 
knowledge.  They  were  supported  by  the  resident  Israel- 
ites ;  and,  in  larger  cities,  not  one,  but  many  places  were 
fitted  up,  furnished  with  libraries,  and  kept  open  night 
and  day,  for  students  who  would  discuss  Talmudical  ques- 
tions under  the  direction  of  either  local  rabbles  or  of  a 
private  instructor. 

Eibeschuetz,  after  having  married  into  a  rich  family, 
took  up  his  domicile  in  Prague,  as  a  private  instructor, 
and  he  is  said  to  have  had  as  many  as  twenty  thousand 
pupils  during  the  thirty  years  he  lived  in  that  city. 
His  nature  being  less  morose  than  that  of  his  older  col- 
leagues, he  was  well  liked  by  the  itinerant  students, 
who  would  spread  his  name,  his  fame,  and  his  wisdom  as 
far  as  they  would  travel.  In  course  of  time  his  authority 
rose  above  that  of  the  chief  rabbi,  and  it  was  anticipated 
that  he  would  certainly  replace  him  at  some  future  day. 
The  followers  of  the  pseudo-Messiah,  Sabbathai  Zwi, 
had,  at  that  time,  not  yet  died  out,  nor  could  they. 
Sabbathai  was  so  utterly  the  product  and  consequence  of 


23-i  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

the  Cabalali  that  not  before  the  cause  was  removed 
could  the  effect  be  overcome.  Every  Cabalist  was  more 
or  less  a  secret  believer  in  Sabbathai.  They  had  arrived 
at  a  philosophy  which  would  have  been  singular  had  it 
not  had  a  prototype  in  Christianity.  God,  they  said, 
must  be  divided  into  two  distinct  parts,  which  again 
form  a  mysterious  unity.  God  himself,  they  asserted, 
stands  in  no  relation  with  the  world  ;  but  his  emanation, 
or  second  person,  whom  they  called  the  God  of  Israel, 
had  created  the  universe,  chosen  Israel,  and  performed  all 
the  miracles.  This  God  of  Israel  would  sometimes  assume 
human  form,  make  himself  visible  to  the  human  eye,  and 
thus  became  incarnate  in  the  person  of  Sabbathai  Zwi. 
They  held,  furthermore,  that  the  Bible  was  composed  to 
a  great  extent  of  names  of  spirits,  and  that  the  one  who 
could  pronounce  them  in  their  right  order  had  power  over 
all  the  forces  of  nature ;  that  especially  any  word  which 
contained  numerically,  or  implied  tlie  letters  of  Sab- 
bathai's  name  could  be  used  as  a  charm  against  all  evil 
influence.  Almost  every  rabbi  was  then  believed  to  be  a 
"  Bal  Shem,"  that  is,  a  man  who  is  familiar  with  all  the 
names  of  spirits  contained  in  the  Bible,  and  who  has  thus 
power  for  good  or  evil.  After  the  colhipse  of  the  Mes- 
sianic swindle,  and  after  manj^  of  Sabbathai's  followers 
had  turned  Christians  or  Mohammedans,  some  kind  of  a 
reaction  followed,  and  every  rabbi  had  to  prove  publicl}^ 
his  orthodoxy  by  denouncing  Sabbathai's  teachings. 
While  the  masses  would  crowd  around  a  rabbi  who  was 
known  to  be  a  Cabalist,  to  ask  for  his  blessing,  it  was 
expected  of  him  that  he  should  not  be  an  adherent  of 
that  accursed  sect.  Jonathan,  thei-efore,  who  was  re- 
nowned for  his  Cabalistic  learning,  and  worshipped 
almost   as  a  miracle-worker,  found  himself  compelled  to 


JONATHAN    EIBESCHUETZ   AND   HIS   TIME  235 

pronounce  the  ban  against  the  sect  of  the  Sabbathaians, 
although  his  own  sympathies  were  with  them.  Jonathan 
was  as  narrow-minded  and  as  bigoted  as  were  liis  contem- 
poraries, and  believed  in  the  power  of  a  blessing  given  by 
him,  and  in  his  own  ability  to  exorcise  evil  spirits.  Why 
should  he  not  have  believed  that  one  formula  was  stronger 
and  more  effective  than  the  otlier  ?  In  1740  he  received 
a  call  to  become  rabbi  of  the  city  of  Metz,  which  was  then 
one  of  the  most  influential  congregations  in  western  Eu- 
rope. He  accepted  the  position,  but  it  seems  that  he  did 
not  satisfy  the  expectations  of  his  parishioners.  He  made 
many  enemies,  by  whom  he  was  accused  of  injustice,  of 
secret  heresy,  and  of  a  great  many  other  acts  unbecoming 
a  gentleman  and  a  rabbi.  He  tried  in  the  meantime 
to  get  a  call  from  Furth,  but  was  unsuccessful.  W])en, 
therefore,  the  three  united  congregations  of  Altona,  Ham- 
burg, and  Wandsbeck  offered  him  the  rabbinical  chair, 
he  accepted  without  hesitation,  and  removed  to  Altona, 
in  1750. 

In  Altona  then  lived  a  great  Talmudical  scholar,  who 
prided  himself  upon  having  sprung  from  a  long  line  of 
scholarly  ancestors.  Jacob  Emden  Askenasi  was  born  in 
1696.  He  received  his  early  training  in  Amsterdam,  and 
finall}'  settled  down  in  Altona.  The  king  of  Denmark 
liad  granted  him  the  privilege  of  ojjeniug  a  Hebrew  print- 
ing-office in  that  city.  He  made  more  than  a  competency 
by  the  publication  of  prayer-books  and  all  such  staple 
literary  works  as  were  then  used  in  every  Jewish  house- 
hold. He  was  scrupulously  pious,  that  is,  he  observed 
carefully  all  the  multifarious  religious  rites  which  then 
were  demanded  of  every  Jew.  So  pious  was  he  that  the 
pubyc  worship  did  not  satisfy  him,  and  he  opened  a  syna- 
gogue in  his  own  house,  in  which  he  himself  officiated. 


2o6  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

The  office  of  rabbi  had  been  offered  him  by  the  heads  of 
the  united  congregations.  He  had  declined  the  honor, 
but  was  still  dissatisfied  when  somebody  else  was  elected, 
and  especially  a  man  whose  great  Talmudical  wisdom 
could  put  his  in  the  shade. 

Both  men  felt  at  their  first  meeting  that  they  were 
enemies,  and  could  never  be  brought  in  sympathy  with 
each  other.  Jonathan  made  some  efforts  to  win  Emden's 
friendship,  and  Emden  bestowed  some  courtesy  upon  the 
new  rabbi ;  but  their  hearts  were  not  in  these  advances. 
Hardly  had  a  year  elapsed  when  the  storm  broke  loose  ; 
a  tempest  which  would  seem  to  us  as  diminutive  and 
insignificant  as  that  which  heat  stirs  up  in  a  tea-pot ;  but 
it  was  a  storm,  nevertheless,  and  it  stirred  up  the  Jew- 
ish communities  all  over  Europe. 

In  case  of  sickness,  but  especially  whenever  a  woman 
expected  to  become  a  mother,  it  was  then  customary  to 
send  to  the  rabbi  and  to  receive  from  him  one  or  several 
amulets,  which  were  supposed  to  be  a  safeguard  against 
all  dangers.  These  amulets  were  either  open  tablets  of 
pasteboard,  which  were  hung  up  like  pictures  upon  the 
walls  of  the  sick-room,  or  sealed  letters,  which  were  placed 
upon  the  body  of  the  sufferer.  They  contained  a  hexa- 
gram called  Magen  David,  formed  of  passages  from  the 
Bible,  and  an  incantation  in  which  God  was  asked  to  cure 
the  sick.  The  less  the  credulous  were  able  to  read  the 
amulet,  the  more  did  they  believe  in  the  effectiveness  of 
the  charm  ;  and  Cabalists  wrote,  therefore,  amulets  after 
a  system  of  cyphers  in  which,  for  instance,  the  first  letter 
of  the  alphabet  was  replaced  by  the  last,  the  second  by 
the  last  but  one,  etc.  This  system  was  called  At-Bash. 
A  short  time  before  Eibeschuetz's  arrival  in  Altona,  sev- 
eral  females  had  died    during  and  after  delivery.     The 


JONATHAN    EIBESGHUETZ   AND    HIS    TIMK  237 

new  rabbi  was  therefore  asked  for  an  effective  amulet  for 
a  young  woman,  a  favor  which  he  could  not  refuse,  as  the 
prayer  appealed  to  his  pride.  The  woman  recovered,  and 
Jonathan  was  considered  a  miracle-worker  by  all  but  Em- 
den,  who  managed  to  get  hold  of  such  an  amulet,  opened  it 
and  found  —  horrible  to  even  mention  it  —  that  Jonathan 
had  written  upon  it,  in  the  customary  cyphers,  an  incan- 
tation which  read  as  follows:  "O  God  of  Israel,  through 
the  merit  of  thy  servant,  Sabbathai  Zwi,  send  recovery  to 
this  woman,  that  thy  name  and  that  of  the  Messiah,  Sab- 
bathai Zwi,  may  be  sanctified  on  earth."  He  published 
immediately  this  fact,  and  accused  him  of  heresy.  Jona- 
than's defence  was  rather  weak ;  he  did  not  deny  to  have 
written  the  amulets,  but  claimed  that  by  a  mistake  the 
passage  had  turned  out  to  read  as  it  did  ;  and  still  weaker 
grew  his  defence,  after  twenty-six  of  such  amulets  writ- 
ten by  him  and  distributed  by  him  in  Metz  were  col- 
lected, opened,  and  found  to  contain  similar  incantations. 
Immediately  two  parties  formed  in  liis  congregation,  and, 
in  course  of  time,  in  every  Jewish  congregation  in  Eu- 
rope ;  one  party  siding  with  Eibeschuetz,  the  other  with 
Emden.  A  liberal  use  was  made  by  both  parties  of  the 
ban,  and  bombs  of  excommunication  were  hurled  from 
camp  to  camp,  as  if  they  were  snowballs.  Nor  was  this 
all.  The  peace  in  the  synagogues  was  so  many  times  dis- 
turbed that  the  police  had  to  be  called  in  to  restore  or- 
der. Jacob  Emden  was  compelled  to  leave  Altona,  and 
to  remove  to  Amsterdam,  from  whence  he  continued 
his  warfare  against  the  heretic.  The  parties  appealed 
finally  to  King  Frederick  of  Denmark,  and  he  laid  the 
whole  matter  before  a  committee  of  Hebrew  professors, 
among  whom  the  most  notable  was  Carl  Anton,  a  con- 
verted  Jew.     Eibeschuetz,  the   chief  rabbi   of   the   three 


238  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

richest  aud  most  prominent  Jewish  congregations  of  Eu- 
roj^e,  was  asked  to  state  his  side  of  the  question,  but  was 
unable  to  write  his  defence  in  readable  German,  and  had 
to  employ  a  secretary  to  do  the  work  for  him.  The 
committee,  not  understanding  this  Jewish  quarrel,  or  the 
significance  of  the  whole  affair,  and  even  believing  that 
Jonathan  might  be  converted  to  Christianity,  brought  in  a 
verdict  of  not  guilty  for  him,  and  his  adherents  celebrated 
this  event  by  a  grand  ball. 

For  fourteen  years,  until  Jonathan  died,  in  176-i,  and 
even  longer,  did  this  controversy  last;  so  singular  on  ac- 
count of  the  ferociousness  with  which  it  was  conducted, 
and  on  account  of  the  insignificance  of  the  points  around 
which  it  turned.  This  controversy  was  the  only  remark- 
able event  of  that  century  ;  it  tears  away  the  veil  from 
that  period,  and  shows  us  the  utter  exhaustion  and  degra- 
dation of  Judaism,  which,  unable  to  produce  greater 
things,  found  pleasure  and  satisfaction  in  the  thoughtless 
performance  of  meaningless  rites;  and,  unfit  to  argue 
more  important  questions,  shot  at  game  which  was  not 
worth  the  powder.  It  has  been  asserted  many  times,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  Judaism  died  long  ago  and  exists  no 
more,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  this  assertion  has  been  con- 
tradicted by  the  fact  that  we  are  still  here  and  alive.  If 
Judaism  is  a  corpse,  as  is  said,  it  is  a  rather  lively  one. 
I  think  that  both  views  are  right  and  wrong  according  to 
the  stand-point  we  take.  The  Judaism  of  Eibeschuetz  is 
dead,  and  we  may  thank  God  that  he  has  removed  it. 
Jewish  rabbles  no  longer  write  amulets,  either  in  the 
name  of  Sabbathai  Zwi,  or  of  anybody  else  ;  nor  does  any- 
body believe  in  the  effectiveness  of  such  charms.  A  new 
and  far  better,  far  healthier,  and  far  stronger  Judaism  has 
replaced  it.     I  cannot  but  again  use  as  a  metaphor  the 


JONATHAN    EIBESCHUETZ    AND    HIS    TIME  280 

myth  of  the  fabulous  bird  who,  when  he  feels  his  strength 
declining,  fires  his  own  nest,  and  rises  from  the  ashes 
rejuvenated  and  more  beautiful  than  before. 

The  Judaism  of  every  historical  period  has  died  witli 
its  exponents,  and  so  will  ours  die  with  us ;  but  it  has 
always  been  replaced  by  a  new  one.  The  cremation  of 
the  old  and  the  appearance  of  the  young  bird  cannot  be 
traced  more  distinctly  than  in  the  period  of  which  I  drew 
the  picture  to-night.  The  Judaism  of  Jonathan  Eibe- 
schuetz  and  Jacob  Emden  disappears,  while  at  the  very 
same  moment  the  Judaism  of  Moses  Mendelssohn  rises 
from  the  ashes.  Eibescliuetz  and  Mendelssohn  were  con- 
temporaries, tliey  were  even  personally  acquainted  with 
each  other  ;  but  what  a  difference  between  these  two  men  ! 
The  one  nails  up  the  coffin  of  mediaeval  Judaism,  the 
other  rocks  the  cradle  of  modern  Judaism.  "  The  king  is 
dead,  long  live  the  king  !  " 


XIX. 

MOSES   MENDELSSOHN   AND  HIS   TIME 

Judaism  is  the  only  democratic  religion  which  the 
world  has  ever  seen ;  the  rest  are  more  or  less  monarch- 
ically  inclined.  Christianity  was  democratic,  but  only  for 
a  short  time,  in  its  infancy,  while  it  was  still  nursed  by 
its  democratic  mother.  After  that  its  tendencies  became 
not  only  monarchical  but  despotic.  When,  during  the 
Reformation,  its  Jewish  recollections  were  revived,  the 
spirit  of  democracy  was  naturally  rejuvenated  with  them. 
But  it  failed  to  establish  itself  upon  a  lasting  basis,  and 
died  away,  leaving  behind  that  form  of  constitutional 
government  by  which  the  Protestant  churches  are  now 
ruled.  In  a  truly  democratic  organization  the  government 
is  never  left  in  the  hands  of  privileged  individuals  or 
classes.  The  places  of  honor  are  open  to  competition  by 
all,  and  only  the  most  worthy  are  allowed  to  occupy  them 
for  the  time  being.  The  stages  of  development  in  the 
history  of  Judaism  are,  therefore,  marked  by  men  from 
all  classes  of  society,  and  not  by  men  of  a  certain  caste. 
While  the  history  of  the  Mohammedan  religion  is  that  of 
certain  families,  while  the  history  of  Christianity  is  that 
of  its  priesthood,  while  in  both  of  these  religions  either 
the  one  born  into  the  ruling  family  or  the  one  educated 
for  the  Church  could  aspire  to  tlie  honor  of  leadership, 
we  find  that  in  Judaism  any  man,  no  matter  what  his 
occupation  or   his   antecedents  were,  could   rise   to  the 


MOSES    MENDELSSOHN    AND    HIS   TIME  2il 

much  coveted  position.  Nor  was  such  a  man  ever  installed 
into  his  office  "with  pompous  ceremonials.  As  long  as  he 
could  sway  the  hearts  of  his  contemporaries,  as  long  as 
he  could  serve  them  with  the  very  best  thoughts,  so  long 
and  no  longer  was  he  followed  by  them,  so  long  and  no 
longer  was  his  word  of  command  obeyed.  The  throne 
which  he  had  conquered  was  his  as  long  as  he  lived,  or  as 
long  as  he  had  the  power  of  defending  it,  but  he  could 
not  bequeath  it  to  his  children  or  leave  it  to  some  friend. 
After  his  resignation  or  demise  it  remained  vacant  until 
a  new  conqueror  could  establish  his  title  to  it.  J\len 
would  rise  —  now  in  Spain,  now  in  Egypt,  Holland, 
France,  England,  or  elsewhere ;  they  would  attract  the 
attention  of  their  coreligionists  by  their  more  profound 
wisdom  or  by  their  more  practical  instincts;  they  would 
impress  their  thoughts  upon  their  time,  or,  to  term  it  more 
correctly,  express  the  thoughts  of  their  time,  and  thus  be- 
come the  acknowledged  interpreters  of  Jewish  thought. 
These  men  were  seldom,  yea  never,  offsprings  of  the  same 
families,  nor  were  they  members  of  a  certain  profession ; 
they  were  neither  priests  nor  theologians,  they  were  men 
of  the  people  —  artisans,  physicians,  traders.  While  ply- 
ing their  trade  they  devoted  their  leisure  hours  to  the 
solution  of  the  burning  questions  of  the  day.  The  answers 
which  they  found  happened  to  be  the  best  at  their  time ; 
they  attracted  the  attention  of  the  contemporary  world, 
and  established  at  once  the  authority  of  the  investigators. 
The  work  of  their  leisure  hours  was  thus  pushed  into  the 
foreground,  and  became  the  work  of  their  lives. 

Democracy,  both  in  politics  and  in  religion,  may  have 
its  drawbacks ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  prevents 
stagnation,  and  turns  occupants  out  of  office  when  they 
])eeonie  indolent  or  lose  the  sharpness  of  their  eyesight. 


242  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

A  party  in  power  does  not  always  see  the  needs  of  the 
time,  and  many  times  it  does  not  care  to  see  them.  It  is 
in  accord  with  the  laws  of  nature  that  in  our  declining 
years  we  grow  conservative,  dislike  to  plunge  into  the 
struggles  of  life,  and  become  desirous  of  making  peace 
with  the  world.  New  needs  demand  new  labors,  new 
exertions,  new  struggles ;  and  fearing  these,  a  party,  after 
having  been  established  in  power  for  a  considerable  length 
of  time,  tries  to  avoid  new  issues,  and  does  not  care  to  be 
bothered  with  new  questions.  If  the  reconstruction  of 
Judaism  had  been  left  to  the  priests  of  old,  to  the  com- 
pilers of  the  Mishna,  to  the  gaons,  to  the  Talmudists,  or 
to  the  Cabalists  of  a  later  age,  there  would  have  been 
few  changes.  The  democratic  spirit  pervading  Judaism 
brought  forth  the  right  men  at  tlie  right  moment,  men 
who  were  less  indolent  than  were  the  authorities  of  their 
time,  who  had  less  to  lose  and  more  to  win,  who  under- 
stood and  sympathized  with  the  needs  and  wants  of  the 
rising  generation.  If  the  development  of  Judaism  in  the 
eighteenth  century  should  have  been  left  at  the  mercy  of 
Eibeschuetz,  Emden,  and  their  colleagues,  it  would  never 
liave  come  to  pass.  The  new  leader  grew  up,  as  usual, 
unknown,  and  in  a  place  and  sphere  where  it  was  least 
expected. 

The  feudal  system,  which  had  held  the  so-called  Roman- 
German  empire  together  during  the  Middle  Ages,  had 
become  obsolete.  Tlie  princes  had  revolted  against  the 
emperor  whenever  his  policy  was  not  favorable  to  their 
own  ambition.  The  whole  German  history  is  a  record  of 
wars  waged  by  the  princes  against  their  "  Kaiser."  Dur- 
ing the  Reformation  the  ties  which  had  held  the  empire 
together  were  still  more  loosened,  and  the  Protestant 
North  began  to  crystallize  around  the  house  of  Hohenzol- 


MOSES    MENDELSSOHN    AND    HIS    TIME  243 

lern,  while  the  Catholic  South  gravitated  towards  the 
house  of  Hapsburg.  From  a  small  beginning  the  mem- 
bers of  the  house  of  Hohenzollern  had  grown  into  counts 
of  Brandenburg  ;  then  they  had  obtained  the  electorate ; 
finally,  under  favorable  circumstances,  they  had  enlarged 
their  territory  and  assumed  the  title  of  kings  of  Prussia. 
The  policy  of  the  house  of  Hohenzollern  had  been  so  suc- 
cessful that  Frederick  II.,  surnamed  the  Great,  dared  to 
defy  not  alone  the  Empress  Theresa  of  Austria,  but  the 
whole  German  confederacy,  with  France  and  Russia  in 
the  bargain.  At  the  end  of  three  campaigns,  which 
together  lasted  about  twelve  years,  he  had  succeeded  in 
wresting  one  of  the  finest  provinces  from  Austria,  and  in 
obtaining  a  voice  for  Prussia  in  the  European  concert. 
Berlin,  then  a  small  town  on  the  river  Spree,  a  mere  mar- 
ket-place for  provincial  trade,  rose  now  into  prominence 
as  the  capital  of  victorious  Prussia.  Not  sooner  did  Ber- 
lin begin  to  offer  commercial  advantages  than  it  attracted 
Jews  in  great  numbers.  The  liberal,  almost  atheistic 
tendencies  of  the  "  Solomon  of  the  North,"  as  Frederick 
II.  was  called  by  his  admirers,  inspired  the  Jews  with 
confidence  in  him  ;  and  although  he  did  not  treat  them 
much  better  than  did  other  princes,  although  he  exacted 
high  personal  taxes  from  them,  they  still  had  reason  to 
believe  that  they  were  safer  under  his  rule  than  under  any 
other  government.  The  attitude  of  Frederick  the  Great 
towards  the  Jews  has  frequently  been  made  a  target  -for 
reproach.  The  philosopher  on  the  throne,  who  had  ex- 
pressed himself  repeatedly  that  under  his  government 
everybody  should  be  permitted  to  work  out  his  salvation 
after  his  own  fashion,  was  taken  to  task  for  having  forced 
laws  upon  the  Jews  which  were  unjust  and  unnecessarily 
degrading.     Every  Jew,  for  instance,  wlio  wished   to  get 


244  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

married  was  compelled  to  buy  about  three  hundred  dol- 
lars' worth  of  china  ware  manufactured  in  the  newly 
established  royal  factories.  He  was  not  allowed  to  pick 
out  what  he  wanted ;  he  was  given  what  the  manager 
saw  fit  to  give  him,  with  prices  fixed  by  the  whim  of  the 
same  man.  These  articles  he  could  sell  in  other  coun- 
tries, but  not  at  home.  Was  such  treatment  in  conform- 
ity with  the  liberal  views  expressed  by  the  admirer  of 
Rousseau  and  Voltaire  ?  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
we  ought  not  to  forget  what  a  sort  of  people  the  Jews 
with  whom  Frederick  dealt  were.  As  a  class  they  were 
ignorant,  bigoted,  and  superstitious,  no  matter  what  the 
causes  were  of  their  narrow-mindedness.  Frederick,  who 
ridiculed  and  chastised  the  superstition  of  the  Christian 
world,  could  not  help  feeling  disgusted  with  the  supersti- 
tion of  a  class  of  people  against  whom  even  race  prejudice 
prevailed.  How  could  Frederick  sympathize  with  people 
who  spoke  no  intelligible  language,  but  a  combination 
of  man}'  languages,  who  seemed  to  have  no  higher  aspira- 
tion than  to  make  money,  who  were  as  intolerant  against 
their  own  as  others  were  against  them?  Abraham  Pos- 
ner,  a  Jewish  resident  of  Berlin,  had  the  audacity  to  cut 
off  his  beard,  and  the  Jewish  community  rose  up  against 
him  in  fury.  The}^  petitioned  the  king  to  punish  the 
malefactor  by  special  act  of  legislation,  since  the  common 
law  of  Prussia  did  not  contain  any  proviso  against  such  a 
crime,  and  the  culprit  did  not  seem  to  care,  much  about 
their  bulls  of  excommunication.  Now  picture  to  yourself 
Frederick  II.  writing  out  a  royal  mandate  that  said 
Posner  be  ordered  to  let  his  beard  grow  again,  and  then 
wonder  why  he  had  not  more  sympathy  with  the  Jews. 
Frederick's  liberalism,  however,  had  a  certain  effect  upon 
the  Jews.     Rousseau,  Voltaire,  and  others  had  already 


MOSES   MENDELSSOHN    AND   HIS   TIME  245 

thrown  their  firebrands  into  the  old  house,  and  the  morn- 
ing breeze  of  the  new  day  drove  the  columns  of  smoke 
and  flame  through  its  rafters.  Even  in  Jewish  circles 
liberal  ideas  were  spreading.  Now  and  then,  here  and 
there,  an  ambitious  youth  would  dare  to  learn  how  to 
read  German  ;  some  even  would  go  so  far  as  to  buy 
books  printed  in  German  letters,  although  the  grand- 
father of  the  Bleicliroeder  family  was  exiled  from  Berlin 
on  the  charge  of  having  owned  such  a  book.  This  prying 
into  new  worlds  was  connected  with  great  dangers. 
Whoever  tasted  of  the  forbidden  fruit  was  excluded  from 
the  old  paradise,  while  the  world  outside  of  it  did  not 
offer  him  a  safe  retreat.  Whenever  a  Jew  succeeded  in 
obtaining  knowledge  which  lay  beyond  the  sphere  of  the 
Talmud,  he  saw  no  way  to  save  himself  other  than  to 
turn  Christian,  and  there  were  not  a  few  who  were  thus 
driven  into  a  religion  which  they  disliked  as  much  as 
they  hated  the  religion  from  which  they  had  escaped. 
It  seemed  then  almost  impossible  for  an  intelligent  man 
to  remain  a  Jew. 

The  man,  however,  was  already  born  who  should 
demonstrate  the  possibility  of  such  a  coincidence.  In 
Dessau,  the  capital  of  a  small  principality,  then  allied  with 
the  Prussian  house,  there  lived  a  Jew  called  Mendel 
(which  was  the  corrupt  pronunciation  of  Emanuel).  He 
eked  out  a  scanty  living  by  copying  Hebrew  manuscripts, 
scrolls  of  the  Pentateuch,  Mesusoth,  and  Tephilin.  By 
the  light  of  a  flickering  oil  lamp  he  could  be  seen  study- 
ing the  Talmud  and  its  commentaries,  till  late  into  the 
night,  with  his  boy  Moses,  a  sickly,  deformed  lad  of  about 
ten  3'ears.  If  a  prophet  had  then  arisen  who  would  have 
foretold  that  this  sickly  boy  was  destined  by  fate  to  break 
the  spell  which  held  Judaism  in  its  bonds,  nobody  would 


246  Dis80Lvrx(j  view.s 

have  believed  it.  But  Muses,  tlie  sttu  of  Mendel,  or  Men- 
delssohn, as  he  was  afterwards  called,  was  destined  to 
perform  the  great  task.  His  biography  is  so  well  known 
that  it  seems  superfluous  to  dwell  upon  it;  still,  it  always 
bears  repetition.  Moses  was  born  September  17,  1729,  in 
Dessau.  He  learned  from  his  father  and  the  rabbi  of  that 
place  as  much  as  both  were  able  to  teach  him.  It  was 
customary  at  that  time  among  the  Jews  to  turn  their 
sons  out  of  their  houses  as  soon  as  they  were  thirteen 
years  of  age.  Either  they  were  sent  out  peddling,  or 
hired  out  as  servants ;  or  if  they  showed  talent  as 
scholars,  they  were  sent  away  to  other  cities,  to  hear  the 
great  rabbles.  These  boys  would  travel  from  place  to 
place  supported  by  their  coreligionists,  stopping  at  some 
city  for  a  time  and  then  going  further,  until  after  many 
years  they  returned  to  their  homes  or  found  a  new  settle- 
ment somewhere  else.  Without  a  penny  in  his  pocket, 
Moses,  a  sickly  boy  of  small  size,  arrived  in  the  city  of 
Berlin,  in  the  year  1742.  His  former  teacher,  the  rabbi 
of  Dessau,  had  previously  accepted  a  call  to  Berlin.  He 
became  now  his  protector.  He  instructed  him  and  em- 
ployed him  as  a  copyist.  Berlin  was  at  that  time  the 
most  literary  and  most  liberal  city  in  Germany,  and 
Mendelssohn,  too,  became  infected  with  liberal  ideas. 
He  learned,  secretly,  how  to  read  and  write  German,  and 
afterwards  studied  even  Latin,  French,  and  English.  He 
had  read  the  works  of  the  philosopher  Maimonides  before, 
and  he  now  read  them  again  by  the  light  of  the  new  age, 
and  assimilated  his  thoughts  with  those  modern  ones 
with  which  the  very  air  around  him  was  pregnant.  His 
material  circumstances,  too,  had  improved  during  the  last 
few  years.  He  had  found  a  place  as  private  teacher  in 
the  family  of  a  rich  Jewish  silk-manufacturer.     By  and 


MOSES    MENDELSSOHN    AND    HIS   TIME  247 

by  he  rose  to  the  position  of  book-kee[)er  and  was  finally 
made  a  partner.  At  a  game  of  chess  he  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Lessing,  and  it  was  solely  through  him  that  he 
became  the  renowned  Moses  Mendelssohn.  Lessingf  dis- 
covered  in  him  all  the  essfutials  of  a  philosopher.  Botli 
men  were  born  for  each  other,  and  they  felt  it.  Their 
works  can  be  understood  only  when  we  take  notice  of 
their  connection  with  each  other.  The  bold  Lessing 
urged  the  timid  Mendelssohn  to  speak  out  his  thoughts ; 
to  show  to  the  world  that  a  Jew  is  not  what  he  appears 
to  be,  that  Judaism  cleansed  from  superstition  stands 
nearer  to  the  religion  of  humanity  than  any  other.  But 
Mendelssohn  hesitated.  Against  his  will  and  without  his 
knowledge,  Lessing  published  a  few  of  the  essay's  which 
Mendelssohn  had  written  for  his  own  pleasure,  and  at 
once  the  eyes  of  the  intelligent  world  were  attracted 
towards  him.  This  unexpected  success  gave  him  the 
courage  to  publish  his  "  Phsedon,"  a  work  in  which  he 
made  Socrates  and  his  disciples  discuss  immortality. 
This  work  established  his  reputation  and  made  him 
immortal.  Visitors  came  from  all  parts  of  Europe  to 
see  and  to  converse  with  the  new  Socrates,  who  seemed 
to  have  reappeared  in  the  person  of  Moses  Mendelssohn. 
His  coreligionists  basked  for  a  while  in  the  sunshine  of 
his  glory,  but  the  light  soon  became  troublesome  to  them. 
Such  philosophical  conceptions  of  the  divinity  and  of 
immortality  as  expressed  in  his  work  could  not  be  'rec- 
onciled with  traditional  Judaism,  and,  although  Moses 
rigorously  observed  all  Jewish  ceremonies,  they  began  to 
distrust  him.  The  Christian  world,  too,  was  astonished 
to  hear  such  words  from  the  lips  of  a  Jew. 

Whenever  Judaism  has  entered  upon  a  new  phase  and 
was  about  t(j  root  up  old  practices,  the  Christian  world 


248  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

always  hailed  the  change  as  an  advance  towards  Christi- 
anity, but  it  has  always  been  mistaken.  The  liberal  Jew 
is  far  from  beino-  a  Christian.  It  was  orthodox  Judaism 
that  was  in  dangler  of  becoming  Christianized.  The  more 
liberal  a  Jew  is,  the  farther  off  is  he  from  the  Christian 
road.  The  over-zealous  Lavater,  sharing  the  same  error, 
thought  that  a  philosopher  who  could  copy  a  Socrates  as 
well  as  Mendelssohn  had  done,  in  his  "  Phsedon,"  must 
also  see  the  light  of  Christianity,  and  he  exhorted  him 
publicly  to  embrace  it,  or  to  give  his  reasons  why  he 
would  not,  if  he  had  any  to  give.  Mendelssohn,  who 
would  never  have  thought  of  attacking  Christianity,  was 
now  compelled  to  do  so  in  self-defence.  In  his  answer  to 
Lavater,  he  laid  bare  the  errors  of  Christianity  and  showed 
Judaism  in  an  entirely  new  light,  in  nearly  the  same  light 
as  we  see  it  to-day.  He  showed  it  as  a  progressive  relig- 
ion, as  a  religion  of  reason  and  not  of  belief.  While 
Lavater  was  thus  silenced,  the  Jews  protested  against 
Mendelssohn's  interpretation  of  Judaism  ;  it  was,  indeed, 
not  theirs.  The}'  did  not  know  that  their  Judaism  was 
dying,  while  a  new  kind  of  Judaism  was  about  to  be 
born.  A  few  years  later,  impelled  by  a  similar  attack,  he 
wrote  his  "Jerusalem,"  in  which  he  defined  Judaism  still 
more  clearly.  In  it  he  denied  to  every  religious  com- 
munity the  right  of  compelling  an  adherent  to  submit  to 
the  decrees  of  a  church  tribunal;  and  thus  demanded  the 
utmost  liberty  of  conscience.  His  boldest  step,  however, 
was  his  translation  of  the  Pentateuch  into  the  German 
language.  The  study  of  Talmud  and  Cabalah  had  so 
overtowered  the  study  of  the  Bible  that  it  was  hardly 
understood  by  the  masses,  though  it  was  read  week  after 
week.  The  Hebrew  language  once  removed,  which  was, 
so   to  say,  the  Bible's   cloak  of  divinity,  since' God  was 


MOSES    MENDELSSOHN    AND    HIS    TIME  240 

supposed  to  have  spoken  and  written  in  this  language,  it 
became  plain  that  the  work,  sublime  as  it  is  as  the 
product  of  human  genius,  could  not  have  been  the  direct 
word  of  God.  The  German  translation  of  the  Bible, 
furthermore,  gave  the  German  Jew  a  taste  for  correct 
and  pure  German,  and  thus  stimulated  him  to  think  and 
study.  All  our  progress  in  religion  is  to  a  great  extent 
due  to  his  German  translation  of  the  Bible.  Mendels- 
sohn, as  usual,  had  not  the  courage  to  disturb  the  peace 
of  the  world.  He  was  one  of  those  men  who  are  always 
afraid  that  it  is  not  yet  time  to  instruct  the  masses,  and 
who  fear  that  they  may  be  misunderstot)d.  He  had 
written  a  translation  of  the  Bible  for  the  use  of  his  own 
children,  and  his  friends  urged  him  to  publish  it.  After 
a  long  resistance  he  yielded,  and  the  shock  which  it  gave 
to  orthodox  Judaism  was  felt  immediately.  His  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible  was  attacked  from  all  sides ;  but  the 
more  it  was  denounced,  the  greater  was  the  interest  with 
which  it  was  read.  Another  book,  "  The  Morning 
Hours,"  \vhich  he  published  a  short  time  before  his 
death,  may  also  be  counted  among  the  best  literary  pro- 
ductions of  his  time. 

His  private  life  stood  as  high  as  did  his  public  activity. 
He  lived  the  life  of  a  true  phil()SO})her.  Every  one  of  his 
words  was  dignified.  While  he  lived,  the  blessing  of 
peace  rested  upon  his  home  circle,  and  his  bitterest  ene- 
mies could  not  point  to  the  smallest  stain  upon  his  reco-rd. 
The  purity  of  his  motives  was  apparent  in  all  his  actions 
and  in  all  his  writings.  He  was  self-composed,  patient, 
restive  rather  than  impulsive,  and  his  very  timidity  was 
lovable.  He  died  at  the  early  age  of  fifty-seven  years,  on 
January  4, 1786,  a  few  years  later  than  his  life-long  friend, 
Lessing,  who  had  erected  fni-  him  a  monument  which  will 


250  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

outlast  orraiiite  or  bronze.  "Nathan  the  Wise"  is  ac- 
knowleged  to  be  the  photograph  of  Mendelssohn,  and  as 
long  as  the  German  language  shall  be  understood,  as 
long  as  humanity  shall  appreciate  nobility  of  character 
and  admire  deeds  rather  than  words,  so  long  will  "Nathan 
the.  Wise  "  be  a  creation  die  fished  by  the  good  and  noble 
of  all  ages  and  nations. 

Mendelssohn's  greatness  neither  begins  nor  ends  with 
these  publications.  It  must  be  sought  in  the  fact  that 
he,  an  intelligent  man,  dared  to  remain  a  Jew  despite  all 
his  intelligence,  that  he  dared  to  say  that  Judaism  is 
something  else  than  what  Jew  and  Christian  thought  it 
was,  that  he  dared  to  build  up  a  more  timely  Judaism 
without  the  aid  of  Cabalah  and  Talmud,  that  he  dared 
to  proclaim  Judaism  the  true  religion  of  humanity.  The 
o-reatness  of  Moses  Mendelssohn  must,  furthermore,  be 
sought  in  the  fact  that  he  compelled  the  Christian  world 
to  acknowledge  that  the  Jew  has  as  much  right  to  his 
religious  views  as  a  Christian  has  to  his ;  that  there  is  as. 
much  logic,  if  not  more,  in  his  doctrines  as  in  those  of 
any  other  creed,  and  that,  as  a  man,  he  can  place  himself 
on  a  level  with  any  of  his  fellow-citizens.  Mendelssohn, 
so  to  say,  took  the  Jew  by  the  hand  and  led  him  from  the 
darkness  of  tlie  Glietto  into  the  dazzling  sunlight.  He 
introduced  him  afresh  into  the  world ;  he  convinced  him 
that  knowledge  and  science  are  not  hostile  to  Judaism, 
and  that  there  is  no  need  to  fear  that  the  Jew  must  be- 
come a  Christian  simply  because  he  leaves  the  Ghetto,, 
dresses  like  other  human  beings,  .speaks  intelligibly,  and 
behaves  decently. 

Although  not  every  Christian  was  a  Lessing  and  not 
every  Jew  a  Mendelssohn,  although  the  masses  on  both 
sides  were  very  far  from  the  stand-point  of  these  ideal  per- 


MOSES    MENDELSSOHN    AND    HIS    TIME  251 

sons,  times  had  changed  for  the  better.  Both  Jews  and 
Christians  had  grown  ripe  for  new  deveU)pnients.  Relig- 
ion was  no  longer  to  be  measured  by  its  forms,  but  by  the 
standard  of  its  ethics.  The  fable  of  the  three  rings  had 
made  its  tour  of  the  world.  The  bold  word  had  been 
spoken,  the  secret  had  been  let  out ;  one  religion  was  as 
good  and  as  bad  as  the  other.  The  genuine  ring  was  })er- 
haps  lost,  and  all  three  sons  might  have  been  imposed 
upon.  Slowly  and  by  degrees  the  new  Judaism  began  to 
emerge  from  the  former  chaos.  It  was  to  be  a  religion 
and  nothing  else,  it  was  to  enter  on  equal  terms  into  com- 
petition with  other  religions,  and  the  Jew,  its  bearer,  was 
to  enter  into  competition  with  his  fellow-citizens  in  the 
market  of  life.  The  future  was  to  show  which  religion 
was  able  to  produce  the  best  men.  The  impulse  once 
given,  the  example  once  set,  a  new  era  began  for  the  Jew. 
Unhampered  by  prejutlices,  he  now  devoted  himself  zeal- 
ously^ to  esoteric  studies,  intending  to  make  up  what  he 
had  neglected  so  long.  His  inborn  rationalism  and  his 
native  talent  helped  him  marvellousl^s  and  within  a  short 
period  we  find  the  Jews  entirely  transformed. 

It  canii'ot  be  denied  that  the  revolution  in  America  and 
in  France,  the  following  Napoleonic  era  and  the  changes 
which  it  wrought  in  European  conditions,  helped  greatlv 
to  make  the  Jew  of  the  nineteenth  century  ;  but  there  was 
still  a  great  danger  to  be  overcome.  Sudden  changes  are 
never  wholesome  ;  it  is  the  tree  that  grows  slowly  that 
produces  the  hardest  wood.  The  change  from  the  Juda- 
ism of  the  eighteenth  century  to  that  of  the  nineteenth, 
from  the  dark  night  to  the  bright  noon,  could  not  but  be 
followed  with  many  dangers,  could  not  but  produce  un- 
healthy conditions.  The  Jew,  having  lifted  himself  tVom 
his  former   humble  position  into  equality,  and  sometimes 


252  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

superiority  to  liis  fellow-citizens,  wished  an  early  acknowl- 
edgment of  this  .marvellous  feat.  Customs  and  preju- 
dices, however,  are  not  uprooted  within  a  few  years,  it 
takes  generations  to  destroy  them.  The  Jew  was  still 
debarred  from  entrance  into  conventional  and  social  life. 
Many,  therefore,  thought  that  they  must  entiiely  disen- 
tangle themselves  from  their  former  connections.  Having 
been  brought  up  in  a  sort  of  hypocrisy,  accepting  new 
ideas  while  not  discarding  the  old  ones,  the  new  gener- 
ation failed  to  see  the  grandeur  of  Judaism.  To  better 
their  social  circumstances,  they  left  their  religion  entire!}', 
and  turned  Christians  in  crowds.  This  was  the  age  which 
followed  that  of  Mendelssohn,  and  it  lasted  through  the 
first  decades  of  the  present  century. 


XX. 

BOERNE   AND   HEINE   AND   THEIR   TIME 

For  seventeen  long  centuries  the  Jews  had  wearily 
fixed  their  gaze  towards  the  East,  expecting  to  see  the 
man  come  from  there  who,  by  the  power  of  his  word,  would 
make  an  end  to  their  humiliation.  The  Messiah  who  was 
to  break  the  fetters  of  their  subjection  was  expected  to 
be  the  child  of  an  eastern  clime.  They  were,  however, 
mistaken.  Their  deliverer  came,  but  not  from  the  East ; 
not  riding  upon  the  fancied  mule,  nor  did  he  bring  them 
that  sort  of  elevation  of  which  they  had  dreamt.  He  did 
not  collect  them  from  the  corners  of  the  earth ;  he  did 
not  place  them  at  the  head  of  other  nations,  as  they 
thought  he  would  ;  he  did  not  press  their  religious  views 
upon  others,  as  they  would  have  liked  him  to  do  ;  he 
brought  them  simply  "e(iuality."  It  is  true  that  the  drift 
of  the  time  had  prepared  the  way  for  the  idea  that  all 
human  beings  should  have  equal  rights  before  the  law, 
but  it  was  necessary  that  one  man  or  some  bod}'  of  men 
should  condense  these  floating  vapors  into  tlie  liquid  es- 
sence of  a  formula,  that  one  man  or  a  body  of  men  should 
have  the  courage  of  their  opinion,  and  should  sa}^  in  so 
many  words  what  all  were  thinking,  but  all  were  too 
timid  to  express  in  plain  language.  The  bold  word  was 
not  spoken  in  the  ancient  East,  it  was  spoken  in  the  new 
world,  in  the  West ;  it  was  not  spoken  in  Asia  or  Eu- 
rope, it  was  spoken  in  America,  and  the  man  wlio,  in 
behalf  of  others,  gave  utterance  to  the   magic    loniiula, 

253 


254  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

Thomas  Jefferson,  was  in  fact  the  Messiah,  was  in  fact  the 
man  who  brought  to  the  Jews  what  they  needed  most : 
"  equality." 

Between  the  fancy  of  our  dreams  and  the  cold  facts  of 
reality  there  is  always  a  wide  gap.  For  long  centuries 
men  have  wished  for  quick  transportation ;  they  have 
fancied  that  some  magic  mantle  or  some  magic  rod  could 
transport  them  with  the  velocity  of  lightning  from  one 
corner  of  the  earth  to  the  other.  The  wish  was  realized  : 
but  what  a  difference  there  is  between  our  railroads  and 
steamships  and  the  mantle  of  Faust  or  the  wooden  horse 
of  the  Arabian  Nights.  The  Messianic  hopes  of  Israel 
were  indeed  realized,  though  not  in  the  shape  our  an- 
cestors had  seen  them  in  their  dreams.  When  the  Mes- 
siah came,  when  the  magic  word  was  spoken  that  gave 
them  liberty  and  equality,  they  hardly  knew  it ;  they 
hardly  became  aware  of  it,  because  they  missed  the 
sound  of  the  trumpet  and  the  triumphal  processions 
which  they  thought  were  indispensable  to  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Messiah. 

Thomas  Jefferson  had  penned  the  words  :  "  All  men 
have  equal  rights  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness," and  these  words  revolutionized  the  world.  France 
soon  followed  the  example  of  the  United  States,  and  when 
Napoleon's  victorious  armies  crossed  the  Rhine  they  broke 
open  the  Ghettos  of  the  German  cities,  and  declared  that 
the  Jew  was  a  citizen  and  had  the  same  rights  to  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  as  had  his  fellow- 
men.  The  awakening  from  their  hypnotic  sleep  had  been 
so  sudden  that  the  Jews  of  Germany,  who  were  at  that 
time  the  actual  representatives  of  Judaism,  did  not  know 
where  in  tiie  world  they  were.  It  is  said  that  somnambu- 
lists may  climb,  in  their  sleep,  to  the  roofs  of  houses,  but 


BOERNE   AND    HEINE   AND   THEIR   TIME  255 

that  they  will  fall  from  the  height  as  soon  as  they  are 
called  by  their  names.  A  similar  phenomenon  occurred 
when  the  Napoleonic  drum-corps  suddenly  awakened  the 
Jews  from  their  somnambulistic  trance.  They  could  not 
hold  themselves  on  their  feet  and  fell  down  the  precipice. 
The  first  rays  which  illumine  the  nineteenth  century 
show  us  Judaism  in  a  sad  plight.  The  doors  of  the  cage 
had  been  opened,  but  the  birds  had  lost  the  use  of  their 
wings  through  so  long  an  imprisonment.  Some  would 
timidly  flutter  within  the  grating  of  their  prisons,  missing 
the  door  at  every  attempt ;  and  those  who  were  lucky 
enough  to  find  the  opening  would  fall  into  the  clutches  of 
their  enemies.  In  other  words,  the  masses  did  not  know 
how  to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  new  conditions. 
They  objected  to  every  reform  movement.  They  felt 
sorry  to  leave  their  cells,  because,  through  long  association, 
they  had  become  attached  to  them.  They  would  not  mix 
with  their  neighbors  now  that  an  opportunit}^  was  given 
to  them,  and  they  thought  that  Judaism  would  be  lost 
with  the  old  mansion.  To  save  it,  they  clung  tenaciously 
to  the  old  customs,  which  had  become  obsolete.  The  few 
who  had  passed  the  door  began  to  look  with  disgust  upon 
their  former  surroundings  ;  they  wished  to  obliterate  their 
whole  past,  to  wipe  out  all  remembrances  of  their  former 
degradation,  and  they  imagined  they  would  find  the  long 
sought-for  happiness  in  the  bosom  of  the  Christian  church. 
The  German  governments,  and  especially  that  of  Prussia, 
met  them  half-way.  The  bureaucratic  circles  were  opened 
only  to  the  convert,  while  they  remained  closed  to  the 
Jew.  Whoever  wished  to  obtain  a  government  position 
as  a  lawyer,  physician,  or  officer  of  the  army  had  to  sub- 
mit, formally,  at  least,  to  baptism.  The  form  merely  was 
insisted    upon,   and   nobody   cared   whether   the    convert 


256  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

indeed  believed  in  the  doctrines  of  Cliristianity.  Con- 
versions were  therefore  the  rule  of  the  day.  In  Berlin, 
two-thirds  of  the  Jewish  residents,  numbering  nearly  two 
thousand  persons,  were  baptized  within  a  few  years,  not 
to  speak  of  the  number  of  converts  in  other  places.  The 
descendants  of  Moses  Mendelssohn  set  a  pernicious  ex- 
ample. Most  of  them  turned  Christians.  The  orthodox 
pointed,  therefore,  with  scorn,  to  the  children  of  the  great 
philosopher  ;  they  maintained  that  their  acts  were  a  neces- 
sary consequence  of  their  father's  reformatory  ideas,  and 
they  warned  all'not  to  walk  so  dangerous  a  path,  which 
would  lead  their  children  inevitably  to  the  baptismal  font. 
The  more  enlightened  classes  thought  that  what  the  chil- 
dren of  Mendelssohn  dared  to  do  could  not  be  a  dis- 
grace to  themselves,  and  they  followed  in  their  wake. 

That  both  wings  were  wrong  can  be  easily  seen  now, 
after  a  lapse  of  time.  The  one  party  had  closed  its  eyes 
to  the  light  because,  accustomed  to  darkness,  it  was 
dazzled  ;  the  other  had  stared  at  the  shining  ball,  and  had 
turned  blind.  The  small  faction  of  true  reformers,  who 
stood  between  both  extremes,  shared  the  fate  of  the  bat 
in  the  fable,  who,  in  the  quarrels  between  four-footed 
animals  and  birds,  was  denounced  as  a  bird  on  account  of 
its  wings,  by  the  quadrupeds,  and  persecuted  by  the  birds 
on  account  of  its  mammalian  qualities.  The  superstitious 
masses  opposed  every  needed  reform,  and  the  renegades 
sneered  at  it.  The  Bible  tells  of  a  disturbance  in  the 
Egyptian  camp  which  was  caused  by  a^combination  of 
light  and  darkness  ;  a  similar  distur])ance  can  be  verified 
among  the  Jewi\  at  the  beginning  of  our  century.  Times 
had  changed  suddenly,  all  social  conditions  had  been 
abruptly  upset,  and  people  could  not  adjust  themselves 
quickly  enough  to  the  new  state  of  affairs.    They  had  been 


BOERNE    AND    HEINE   AND    THEIR    TIME  25  ( 

brought  up  at  home  in  accordance  with  the  old  customs ; 
the  youthful  remembrances  were  still  alive  in  them  ^  the 
recollections  of  the  pleasant  Friday  evenings,  of  the  fes- 
tivals, and  of  many  other  delightful  ceremonials  were 
still  cherished  by  many ;  but  what  was  good  for  tlie 
Ghetto  had  ceased  to  be  of  use  in  the  present  time,  and 
both  extremes  could  not  be  reconciled.  A  man  could  not 
serve  both.  He  could  not  do  justice  to  a  position  in  the 
world  and  remain  at  the  same  time  within  a  circle  of 
obsolete  ceremonials.  The  attempt  to  make  possible  the 
impossible  brought  about  a  state  of  hypocrisy  such  as  was 
never  seen  before,  and  we  to-day  are  still  suffering  from 
it.  The  most  peculiar  ideas  were  in  vogue.  One  man 
would  make  a  distinction  between  his  home  life  and  his 
public  life.  At  home  he  would  keep  up  strictly  all  the 
old  ceremonials  —  he  would  live,  as  he  called  it,  the  life  of 
a  pious  Jew ;  but  outside  of  his  house  he  would  excuse 
himself  from  all  religious  obligations.  Another  would 
insist  that  his  children  should  be  brought  up  strictly 
orthodox,  while  he  himself  would  no  longer  bind  himself 
to  religious  prescriptions.  As  a  consequence,  such  chil- 
dren became  disgusted  with  and  alienated  from  their 
religion.  The  observation  of  the  Sabbath  became  then 
a  prominent  and  burning  question.  Under  no  consid- 
eration would  they  give  up  the  historical  Sabbath ;  noth- 
ing could  tempt  them  to  accept  the  Sunday  in  place  of  it. 
Still,  they  could  not  rest  on  two  days,  and  so  they 
would  timidly  open  the  back  door  on  Saturdays  to  admit 
customers  ;  then,  when  they  found  that  the  sky  did  not 
fall  upon  them,  they  would  pick  up  their  courage  and 
keep  their  business  places  open  ;  but  they  would  never- 
theless tell  God  in  their  Sabbath  prayers  how  delighted 
they  were  with  their  day  of  rest,  and  how  thankful  they 


258  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

were  to  him  who  has  given  them  such  a  dsij.  Could 
hypocrisy  take  a  step  beyond  this  ?  And  this  they  called 
keeping  up  their  religion  ;  this  they  called  defending  the 
last  bulwark  of  Judaism. 

A  Jewish  clergy  with  power  to  stem  the  tide  or  to  lead 
it  into  proper  channels  did  not  exist  at  that  time.  The 
new  rabbies  had  either  not  yet  been  born,  or  they  were 
still  at  school  preparing  for  their  future  mission.  The 
rabbies  in  office  were  as  blind  as  the  moles.  They  bent 
over  their  Talmudical  books,  and  discussed  what  the  rab- 
bies had  said  a  thousand  years  ago ;  they  learned  and 
learned,  but  knew  nothing,  nor  did  they  accomplish  any- 
thing. As  a  class  they  had  become  practically  useless, 
but  still  they  did  not  know  it  nor  did  they  see  it.  They 
had  lost  all  authority,  and,  having  made  themselves,  through 
their  absurdities,  the  laughing-stock  of  the  rising  genera- 
tion, they  were  unable  to  influence  them,  nor  could  they 
shape  their  religious  opinions. 

Some  men  of  good  intentions  formed  at  Berlin  a  society 
for  the  preservation  of  Judaism.  The  members  had  to 
pledge  themselves  that  under  no  consideration  would 
they  leave  Judaism  and  turn  Christians. .  The  result  was 
that  after  a  short  existence  the  very  president  of  that 
organization  embraced  Christianity.  It  is,  indeed,  a  mira- 
cle that  Judaism  has  passed  unharmed  through  this  ordeal. 
If  its  constitution  had  not  been  so  vigorous,  if  its  ration- 
alism had  not  ever  revolted  against  Christian  superstition, 
it  would  not  have  been  able  to  stand  the  pressure  which 
then  was  brought  u|)on  it.  A  man  is  able  to  resist  force  ; 
he  will  glory  in  the  martyrdom  of  the  pyre  and  the  scaffold, 
because  it  is  only  a  short  moment  that  he  suffers  the 
bodily  pains,  and  his  imagination  helps  him  to  leap  the 
gulf  by  picturing  to  him  either  the  joys  of  heaven  or  the 


BOERNK    AND    HEINE    AND   THEin    TIME  259 

admiration  of  the  workl  :  l)ut  a  mau  cannot  so  easily 
resist  the  songs  of  the  sirens.  Like  a  rat,  he  is  not  likely 
to  be  trapped  by  vinegar,  but  he  will  be  attracted  by  the 
smell  of  the  sweet  bait  of  blandishment.  A  man  does  not 
care  to  suffer  all  his  life  from  the  mosquito-stings  of  dis- 
guised prejudices,  because  not  even  the  glory  of  martyr- 
dom is  given  to  him  as  compensation  for  his  agonies. 

In  this  light  we  must  look  upon  and  judge  the  two  men 
who,  if  they  do  not  represent  their  time,  reflect  it  at  least, 
as  if  in  a  highly  polished  mirror.  Ludwig  Boerne  and 
Heinrich  Heine  are  no  Jews,  if  the  sprinkling  of  a  few 
drops  of  water  and  the  certificate  of  the  Protestant  pastors 
of  Offenbacli  and  Heiligcenstadt  could  have  made  them 
Christians ;  they  are  no  Jews,  if  we  measure  them  by 
their  observation  of  Jewish  rites  and  ceremonies ;  they 
are  no  Jews,  if  the  sarcasm  is  taken  in  account  with  which 
they  chastised  both  their  former  coreligionists  and  their 
former  religion.  But  we  know  they  are  Jews  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  word,  when  we  observe  the  truly  Jewish 
spirit  which,  in  spite  of  themselves,  pervaded  all  their 
writings,  when  we  behold  the  sensitiveness  with  which 
they  felt  the  sting  of  prejudice  whenever  it  was  directed 
against  any  one  of  their  race,  or  when  we  behold  the 
fearlessness  with  which  they  stood  up  manfully  to  defend 
their  former  brethren  against  such  attacks,  though  they 
themselves  did  not  hesitate  to  assail  them. 

A  family  jar  once  occurred  between  a  husband  and  his 
wife.  They  came  to  blows,  and  the  women  of  the  neigh- 
borhood rushed  in  to  succor  their  sister.  They  were  about 
to  fall  upon  the  man  with  their  broomsticks,  when  the 
wife,  whom  they  intended  to  aid,  turned  against  them. 
"  What  business  have  you  to  hit  my  husband?  "  she  cried  ; 
"strike  your  own   husbands,  and  don't  you  dare  to  mix 


260  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

in  my  affairs."  With  some  unmistakable  signs  of  dis- 
pleasure, the  valiant  couple  admonished  the  compassionate 
ladies  to  retire. 

In  a  similar  way  would  both  Boerne  and  Heine  reserve 
for  themselves  the  privilege  of  assailing  their  brethren, 
but  woe  to  him  who  raised  his  hand  to  do  the  same;  for 
they  would  turn  immediately  against  liim,  and  their  quick 
and  unerring  arrows  generally  laid  out  their  man. 

If  both  of  these  men  had  been  born  half  a  century  later, 
tliej^  might  have  become  the  stronghold  and  the  glovy  of 
Judaism  ;  unfortunately,  they  were  not,  and  the  advan- 
tages which  Judaism  nuiy  have  derived  from  them  were 
merely  of  a  negative  nature.  Both  men  had  different 
ideas;  both  followed  a  diiferent  career;  both  were  some- 
times friends,  at  other  times  bitter  enemies,  and  still,  as  I 
said  before,  they  were  the  products  of  their  time,  which 
manifested  itself  in  both  of  them  with  the  same  results. 

Loeb  Baruch  was  born  in  the  Ghetto  of  Frankfort-on- 
the-Main  in  1786.  His  father,  Jacob  Baruch,  a  banker 
and  money-broker,  who,  being  kept  in  constant  connec- 
tion with  the  Austrian  court  and  its  courtiers,  was  one  of 
those  men  who  made  a  distinction  between  their  home 
life  and  their  public  life.  He  no  longer  believed  in  the 
old  religion;  and  still,  to  please  some  members  of  his 
family,  or  because  he  thought  it  could  do  his  children  no 
harm,  he  insisted  that  they  should  be  brouglit  up  in  the 
old  and  strictly  orthodox  style.  To  accomplish  this  im- 
possible feat,  he  made  the  still  greater  mistake  of  select- 
ing for  their  tutor  as  liberal  a  man  as  he  was  himself. 
The  children  could  not  help  feeling  the  difference  between 
their  teacher's  words  and  his  inwaid  convictions,  and  they 
grew  up  hypocrites.  Loeb,  who  developed  a  strong  love 
for  truth,  began    to    feel   disgusted  with  a    religion  which 


BOERN'E    AND    UlilNE    AND    THEIR    TIME  2t)l 

offered  him  nothing  but  hypocrisy,  and  no  sooner  wus  he 
sent  for  his  I'urtlier  education  to  Giessen,  into  the  house 
of  a  Christian  professor,  than  he  threw  aside  all  the  tedi- 
ous encumbrances  of  his  religion.  A  few  years  later,  he 
moved  to  Berlin  to  finish  his  studies ;  but  how  could  he 
have  become  inspired  there  with  love  for  Judaism,  when 
he  beheld  the  example  of  Mendelssohn's  own  children  ? 
His  early  degradation  made  him  love  liberty  the  more, 
the  more  it  had  been  denied  to  him.  Its  waters  tasted 
the  more  delicious  to  him  because  he  was  thirsty.  In 
order  to  become  free,  in  order  to  become  the  better  en- 
abled to  break  the  political  chains  which  then  held  down 
the  German  people,  in  order  to  secure  himself  against  the 
missiles  which,  as  a  rule,  were  hurled  at  the  Jew,  Loeb 
Barucli  formally  left  the  Jewish  religion  on  June  5,  1818, 
and  rose  from  the  baptismal  font  of  Offenbach,  as  he  im- 
agined, a  new  man,  to  be  known  henceforth  as  Karl 
Ludwig  Boerne.  Having  passed  through  the  distasteful 
ceremony  of  baptism,  he  cared  little  more  for  Christianity 
than  he  cared  for  Judaism,  and  lie  frequently  stated  that 
his  conversion  was  not  worth  the  small  fee  which  he  had 
paid  to  the  pastor.  An  opportunity  to  become  aware  of 
the  iiselessness  of  this  step  was  frequently  given  to  him. 
Despite  his  assumed  name,  despite  his  legally  certified 
Christianity,  he  was,  nevertheless,  called  "a  Jew"  by 
his  enemies.  He  had  wished  to  be  acknowledged  first  as 
a  man,  next  as  a  German,  and  onl}'  then  as  the  adherent 
of  some  religion.  The  world,  however,  was  not  yet  I'eady 
to  accept  such  a  view;  and  though  lie  fought  all  his  life- 
time for  the  liberty  of  Germany,  though  not  unlike  tlio 
prophets  of  old  he  rose  in  indignation  and  chastised  the 
slavish  subordination  of  the  German  people  to  their 
princes,  he  was  not  even  acknowledged  as  a  German   by 


262  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

friends  and  foes.  Boerne  was  not  a  liberal  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word  ;  the  liberty  which  inspired  him  was 
merely  political  liberty,  liberty  from  the  thraldom  of 
monarchical  rule.  This  liberty  he  would  have  purchased 
at  any  price,  and  for  some  time  he  gave  himself  up  to  the 
delusive  hope  that  Catholicism  could  establish  a  great 
republic  after  his  own  heart,  and  he  was  then  satisfied  to 
yield,  even  to  Rome.  Through  his  marvellous  force  of 
expression  and  through  his  success  as  a  journalist,  he 
became  better  known  to  the  world  than  perhaps  thou- 
sands of  other  Jewish  young  men  of  his  age ;  but  he  was 
only  one  out  of  many,  and  a  description  of  the  discord  of 
his  soul  is  a  description  of  the  religious  status  which 
then  unfortunately  prevailed  among  all  the  Jews.  Boerne 
died  an  exile,  in  Paris,  in  1837. 

Heinrich  Heine,  or  Harry  Heine,  was  born  December 
12,  1799,  in  Duesseldorf.  It  is  not  true  that  he  was  born 
in  the  new  year's  night  1800,  and  his  remark  that  he  was 
one  of  the  first  men  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  merely 
a  pun  wliich  suggested  itself  to  him  by  the  nearness  of  his 
natal  day  to  our  centur}-.  The  conflict  among  literary 
men  concerning  the  true  character  and  the  real  greatness 
of  Heine  is  not  yet  settled.  He  is  still  as  much  loved 
and  admired  by  his  friends  as  he  is  hated  and  depreciated 
by  his  enemies.  To  speak  of  Ids  works,  to  describe  the 
power  he  wielded  over  the  hearts  of  the  German  youth 
for  so  many  years,  to  picture  the  enthusiasm  which  even 
to-day  his  songs  arouse  in  those  who  understand  the  Ger- 
man language,  would  require  more  than  one  lecture.  I 
shall  give  to  you  to-night  merel}^  a  few  dry  facts  concern- 
ing his  life.  It  is  my  present  intention  merely  to  emplia- 
size  that,  in  spite  of  his  conversion,  in  spite  of  his  satires 
against  Jews  and  Judaism,  in  spite  of  his  apparent  athe- 


BOERNE    AND    HEINE    AND   THEIK    TIME  263 

ism,  he  was  still  a  Jew.  Scarcel}"  had  the  Jews  in 
Germany  time  to  familiarize  themselves  with  the  German 
tongue,  wliicli  Moses  Mendelssohn  had,  so  to  say,  forced 
upon  them,  when  they  brought  forth  a  poet  from  their 
midst,  whose  enenues  even  were  compelled  to  place  at 
the  side  of  their  own  greatest  master,  Goethe. 

Heine's  life  reflects  the  same  discord  as  does  that  of 
Boerne.  Unable  to  love  the  Judaism  in  which  he  had 
been  brought  up,  finding  nothing  else  ready  to  replace  it, 
nor  anybody  who  would  dare  to  assume  the  duties  of  a 
I'eformer,  loathing  the  prevailing  hypocrisy,  what  could 
we  expect  a  man  of  his  genius  to  become  ?  Fortune 
did  not  smile  upon  him.  Had  he  not  been  poor  and 
dependent  upon  narrow-minded  money-bags  for  his  sup- 
port, had  better  opportunities  been  offered  to  him,  his 
life  nught  have  taken  a  far  different  course.  His  poetic 
nature  was  not  understood  by  his  relatives.  Proud  Pega- 
sus was  to  be  tamed  to  drag  the  plough.  Heine  had  no 
taste  for  commercial  pursui-ts,  and  he  was  a  failure  as  a 
lawyer.  In  order  to  become  free,  to  be  no  longer  depend- 
ent upon  his  uncle's  support,  and  for  no  other  reason  in 
the  world,  he  turned  a  Christian,  as  did  hundreds  of  Jew- 
ish young  men  at  this  time.  He  desired  a  government 
position,  and  therefore  he  submitted  to  baptism,  on  Juiu' 
28,  1825,  and  accepted  the  names,  Christian  Johann 
Heinrich  Heine.  Even  then  he  was  unsuccessful.  He 
did  not  get  the  position  which  he  desired  so  much,  and 
which  he  thought  would  make  him  independent.  He 
never  made  a  secret  of  the  hypocrisy  of  his  step  and  of 
the  poor  opinion  which  he  had  of  his  newly  acquired 
religion.  "None  in  my  family,"  said  he,  "opposes  that 
step  more  than  I  do  myself."  At  anotiier  place,  speaking 
of  himself,  he  says :  — 


2(J4  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

"  Und  du  bist  zum  Kreutz  gekrochen, 
Zu  dem  Kreutz  das  du  verachtest, 
Das  du  noch  vor  wenig  Wochen 
In  den  Slaub  zu  treten  dachtest." 

Heine,  like  his  friend  Boerne,  while  satirizing  the  Jews, 
stood  up  manfully  for  them  whenever  an  enemy  dared  to 
attack  them.  He,  too,  was  a  champion  of  the  liberty  of 
the  German  nation,  and  he,  too,  died  an  exile  in  France, 
in  1856,  having  suffered  for  nine  years  of  a  painful 
spine-disease. 

Such  was  the  Judaism  at  the  beginning  of  our  century. 
Its  best  and  most  genial  men  turned  from  it,  not  because 
they  had  become  convinced  of  the  truth  of  Christianity. 
Far  from  it.  They  turned  from  it  simply  because  it  did  not 
offer  to  them  the  right  nourishment;  because  the  honor 
of  the  martyrdom  was  not  worth  the  price  demanded  for 
it;  because  they  loathed  the  hypocrisy  which  paraded 
openly  in  its  avenues.  This  unfortunate  period  was, 
thank  God,  not  of  a  long  duration.  It  passed  by.  A  new 
school  of  men  grew  up.  They  began  to  investigate,  to 
examine,  to  search  for  truth,  and  to  remove  the  obstacles 
which  former  ages  had  placed  in  the  wa}^  of  progress. 
Their  researches  went  to  the  very  core  and  heart  of  Juda- 
ism, and  they  found  that  this  core  and  heart  were  sound. 
A  new  clergy  arose,  which  took  upon  itself  duties  of  which 
its  predecessors  had  known  little,  if  anything.  Though 
their  work  was  not  as  successful  as  they  would  have  wished 
it  to  be,  though  many  an  impediment  obstructed  their 
way,  they  still  gained  their  points. 

To  name  all  the  men  who  have  helped  to  build  up  the 
Judaism  of  our  day,  and  to  offer  to  all  of  them  the  well 
deserved  tribute  of  gratitude,  would  be  a  task  that  could 
not  be  accomplished  in  one  evening.     Men  of  all  shades, 


BOERNE    AMD    HEINE    AND    THEIK    TIME  2Go 

like  Manheinier,  Kley,  Solomon,  Sachs,  Fuerst,  Iloldheiiu, 
Phillipson,  Jost,  Frankel,  and  others,  are  all  deserving 
of  our  gratitude  and  acknowledgment.  I  shall,  therefore, 
select  only  onfe  of  their  number,  Abraham  Geiger,  as  a 
representative  of  this  period  of  reconstruction,  and  shall 
describe  in  my  next  lecture  the  new  phase  into  which 
Judaism  entered  at  that  time. 


XXI. 

ABKAHAM   GEIGER   AND   HIS   TIME 

It  is  a  queer  world  in  which  we  are  living.  This  uni- 
verse has  been  kept  in  running  order  since  times  immemo- 
rial, since  times  which  the  most  imaginative  brain  cannot 
grasp,  and,  like  a  well  regulated  and  well  oiled  clock- 
work, it  has  neither  gained  nor  lost  the  fraction  of  a 
second ;  still,  as  far  back  as  history  informs  us  of  the 
existence  of  what  we  call  civilization,  the  human  race  lias 
ever  been  dissatisfied  with  the  working  of  that  macliine, 
and  has  unceasingly  endeavored  to  improve  upon  it.  It 
is  amusing  to  read  how  persistently  men  have  complained 
of  the  evils  of  life  ;  how  assiduously  they  have  endeav- 
ored to  find  a  panacea  for  them,  and  how  regularly  all 
their  attempts  have  been  defeated.  No  sooner  had  they 
hemmed  in  an  overflow  on  the  one  side  than  the  water 
slopped  over  on  the  other  ;  no  sooner  had  they  suppressed 
a  fire  here  than  it  burst  out  on  the  opposite  corner. 
From  Moses  to  Henry  George,  men  have  experimented 
with  social  questions  of  all  kinds,  and  have  attempted  to 
abolish  poverty,  and  to  distribute  more  equally  the  good 
things  of  life,  but  all  in  vain.  What  they  gained  in  force 
they  lost  in  time ;  what  they  won  on  the  one  hand  they 
lost  on  the  other. 

There  has  never  been  a  social  reformer  who  has  not 
wished  that  the  motion  of  the  universe  could  be  stopped 

266 


ABEAHA31    GElGEli    AND    HIS    TIME  267 

just  for  that  short  space  of  time  which  he  would  need 
to  set  matters  aright,  or  who  has  not  wished  for  a 
secluded  spot  on  earth  where  he  could  build  up  his 
Utopia,  unhampered  and  undisturbed  by  the  busy  world. 
All  social  reformers  may  be  divided,  like  maniacs,  into 
two  classes :  one  that  would  destroy  everything,  in  order 
to  build-up  a  new  society  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old  one  ; 
and  one  that  would  withdraw  from  the  contact  with  the 
evil  world,  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  their  passions,  the 
motive  of  all  their  actions,  are  following  them  into  their 
solitude.  It  is  a  remarkable  observation  that,  while  com- 
fort and  progress  are  the  children  of  cooperation,  —  and 
the  more  densely  populated  a  country  is,  the  more  easily 
obtainable  they  are,  —  people,  nevertheless,  withdraw 
from  contact  with  the  many,  and  prefer  to  live  by  them- 
selves if  such  a  thing  were  possible.  Parents  will  keep 
their  children  away  from  wdiat  they  call  the  corrupting 
influence  of  others  as  much  as  they  can,  and  would,  if 
they  could,  isolate  them  from  all  and  every  contact  with 
other  children,  keep  private  teachers  for  them,  and  have 
a  private  playing-ground,  all  for  the  sake  of  guarding 
them  against  the  ills  of  society.  And  still  those  who 
have  been  tossed  about  in  the  world,  who  have  learned 
to  push  their  way  through  the  crowd  with  their  own 
elbows,  have  always  grown  up  to  be  the  best  men. 

There  is  not  a  religion  which  does  not  protect  its 
adherents  against  the  contaminating  influence  of  -  the 
surrounding  world.  The  "  pious "  ones  are  kept  in 
the  "  fold,"  under  the  constant  care  and  supervision  of 
the  "pastor,"  and  the  new-comer  must  first  knock  at  the 
door  —  mark  me,  door  — before  he  can  be  admitted  into  the 
seclusion.  The  fear  is  always  exj)ressed  that  the  innocent 
lambs  might  be  led  away  by  the  vicious  goats,  in  spite  of 


2(38  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

the  amount  of  religious  food  with  which  they  are  stuffed. 
What  an  absurd  contradiction  this  is  !  Each  religious 
sect  prides  itself  on  possessing  all  the  truth,  and  still  it 
is  distrustful  that  its  truth  might  not  be  strong  enough 
to  fight  its  own  way.  Every  religious  sect  invites  others 
to  seek  shelter  under  the  protecting  roof  of  its  doctrines, 
and  still  it  is  afraid  that  these  doctrines  might  get  hurt 
when  they  come  in  contact  with  others.  This  has,  how- 
ever, always  been  the  way  of  the  world,  and  these  things 
will  probably  run  along  in  their  accustomed  grooves  for 
some  time  to  come. 

When  Judaism  became  conscious  of  itself,  when  it 
found  that  it  contained  principles  of  a  somewhat  higher 
order  than  were  those  held  by  its  neighbors,  it  settled 
upon  the  usual  policy  of  seclusion.  An  excusable  pride 
whispered  into  the  ears  of  the  Israelite  that  a  nation 
endowed  by  God  himself  with  such  excellent  laws,  and 
kept  under  his  special  protection,  must,  therefore,  be 
more  highly  beloved  by  him  than  other  classes  of  his 
children.  Loathing,  on  the  one  hand,  the  abominations 
of  the  pagan  world,  they  were  afraid  that  the  limpid 
waters  of  their  monotheism  might  be  discolored  by  too 
close  a  contact  with  the  stagnant  pools  of  decaying  poly- 
theism. We  find,  impressed  unmistakabl}^  upon  every 
page  of  Jewish  literature,  that  the  Jews  considered  them- 
selves a  nation  of  priests,  that  is,  a  privileged  class,  which 
must  keep  itself  uncontaminated  by  contact  with  other 
nations.  Seclusion  surely  preserves  ;  and  if  every  human 
being  could  be  closed  up  in  a  cell  by  himself,  a  most 
virtuous  state  of  affairs  might  be  possibly  established. 
Just  think  of  it !  we  would  need  no  police  force,  aiid 
there  would  be  no  envy,  and,  consequently,  no  defaulters, 
thieves,  and  murderers.     All  would  be  exemplarily  pure  ; 


ABRAHA:\r  cF.iGrn  and  his  time  269 

there  would  be  no  war,  and  peace  would  govern  univer- 
sally. It  is  really  too  bad  that  the  world  cannot  be 
transformed  into  a  large  penitentiary.  We  have  to  pay 
for  everything,  and  if  we  exclude  ourselves  from  society, 
society  will  seclude  itself  from  us.  If  we  look  down 
upon  others  as  being  not  our  equals,  others  will  look 
upon  us  the  same  way.  And  so  it  actually  happened : 
the  Jews  sought  happiness  in  their  seclusion  ;  they  would 
preserve  what  they  called  their  revealed  truth  against 
contamination,  by  surrounding  it  with  strong  walls,  and 
the  world  learned  to  look  at  them  as  upon  strangers. 
For  more  than  two  thousand  years  we  behold  the  gap 
between  Judaism  and  the  world,  if  not  widening,  at  least 
not  contracting  a  particle,  and  Christianity  and  Moham- 
medanism treating  the  descendants  of  Israel  as  strangers, 
and  the  Jews  building  up  walls  upon  walls  between  them- 
selves and  their  neighbors.  Even  to-day  religion  means, 
to  a  great  many,  merely  the  signs  of  distinction  between 
one  sect  and  the  other,  and  the  fear  is  always  expressed 
that  if  these  distinguishing  marks  are  swept  out  of  exist- 
ence, all  religion,  and  especially  Judaism,  will  follow. 
People  generally  do  not  take  into  account  the  fact  that 
if  a  religious  truth  is  not  strong  enough  to  protect  itself, 
and  needs  an  artificial  safeguard,  it  is  not  worthy  of 
protection 

When  at  the  dawn  of  the  present  century  all  social 
conditions  underwent  so  radical  a  change;  when,  impelled 
by  the  inventive  genius  of  our  age,  these  changes  followed 
more  rapidly  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  humanity, 
men  arose  in  Israel  who  thought  that  Judaism  was  strong 
enough  to  hold  its  own  on  the  battle-field  of  life,  and 
no  longer  needed  a  protecting  seclusiveness.  They  began 
to  batter  down  the  walls  which  previous  generations  had 


270  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

built  up  around  it,  trusting  in  the  force  of  truth  to  pro- 
tect itself.  They  called  themselves  "  reformers,"  and  the 
principal  merits  of  their  \V(jrk  were  that  they  destroyed 
the  walls  which  had  been  built  up  in  the  past,  that  they 
uprooted  the  old  landmarks,  and  that  they  endeavored  to 
wipe  out  the  signs  by  which  the  Jew  distinguished  him- 
self from  his  fellow-citizens.  These  reformers  have  been 
and  are  still  accused  of  having  destroyed  without  build- 
ing up,  of  having  taken  away  without  giving  in  return, 
and  they,  on  their  part,  have  generally  protested  against 
such  a  charge.  Let  us  be  frank  ;  the  reform  movement 
has  so  far  only  destroyed  and  not  built  up,  and,  instead  of 
avoiding  the  issue,  it  ought  to  face  it  manfully.  Religion 
is  a  growth  and  not  a  building ;  we  may  remove  impedi- 
ments to  the  growth  of  a  plant,  tear  off  the  withering 
leaves  from  it,  that  new  ones  may  the  sooner  sprout,  but 
we  cannot  make  them  grow ;  we  can  take  away,  but  we 
cannot  give  in  religion.  We  can  remove  errors  and  help 
others  to  rise  to  a  better  understanding  of  their  relation 
to  both  the  creator  and  the  creation.  But  this  is  all  we 
can  do.  It  was  sufficient  that  men  grew  up  who  had  the 
courage  to  tear  down  all  those  barriers  by  which  the  Jew 
had  deprived  himself  of  the  enjoyment  of  life,  liberty, 
and  happiness,  and  to  leave  the  growth  of  the  new  plant 
to  the  care  of  Him  who  governs  the  universe,  who  causes 
new  worlds  to  form  as  well  as  the  blade  of  grass  to  grow. 
The  reform  movement  began  in  Germany,  and  its 
nature  was  threefold:  it  was  social,  it  touched  the  ritual, 
and  it  extended  even  to  doctrines  which  so  far  had  been' 
considered  fundamental.  I  shall  now  merely  describe 
the  direction  which  the  reform  movement  has  taken  until 
it  has  reached  us,  but  I  can  neither  describe  in  detail  the 
struggles  after  which  every  innovation  was   established, 


ABRAHAM    GEIGER    AND    HIS    TIME  271 

nor  give  the  biographies  of  all  who  were  instrumental 
in  bringing  them  about.  I  must  also  warn  you  against 
another  mistaken  idea,  viz.^  that  all  tlie  renowned  re- 
formers of  our  century  had  started  with  a  certain  settled 
policy  upon  t])eir  work.  They  did  not ;  they  were  led 
from  one  step  to  another,  one  concession  was  followed  by 
the  next,  and  it  happened  not  seldom  that  within  twenty- 
five  years  a  man  so  utterly  changed  his  views  that  the 
words  of  the  old  man  flatly  contradicted  those  of  the 
youth.  There  is  not  such  a  thing  as  consistency  in  re- 
ligion. It  is  ignorance  only  which  cleaves  stubbornly  to 
a  word  once  spoken.  The  truth-seeker  is  justified  in 
abandoning  to-day  what  he  proclaimed  yesterday  as  truth, 
if  he  finds  that  he  has  been  mistaken,  and  to  give  up 
to-morrow  his  stand-point  of  to-day  if  new  developments 
should  warrant  such  a  surrender. 

The  initiatory  steps  of  the  early  reformers  were  of  a 
social  nature.  The  Jew  was  told  to  shear  off  his  long 
beard  and  hair,  to  dress  like  other  people,  to  speak  an 
intelligible  language,  to  change  his  taste  in  accordance 
with  the  demands  of  the  time,  and  to  modernize  his 
oriental  ideas  in  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  two  sexes. 
A  great  deal  has  been  said  in  praise  of  the  Jewish  family 
life  ;  with  pride  we  have  pointed  to  the  purity  of  morals, 
to  the  conjugal  and  filial  love  which  have  been  the 
blessing  of  the  Jewish  home,  and  to  tlie  respected  posi- 
tion which  the  Jewish  woman,  be  it  as  motlier,  daughter, 
or  sister,  has  been  apportioned  therein.  I  shall  not  take 
an  iota  from  the  general  truth  of  these  assertions,  but,  in 
order  to  be  just,  we  must  also  allow  that  these  fortunate 
conditions  were  not  an  effect  of  the  freedom  and  equality 
granted  to  the  Jewish  women  by  Jewish  legislation  or 
customs.     The    feminine   sex,   as  a   rule,  was  considered 


272  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

inferior  to  the  masculine  gender.  The  male  Israelite 
thanked  God  every  morning  that  he  had  not  created  him 
a  woman.  Women  had  no  right  to  decide  for  themselves 
on  the  more  important  affairs  of  life  ;  they  were  given  in 
marriage  by  their  parents,  sometimes  to  men  whom  they 
had  never  seen  before.  On  their  wedding-day  their  hair 
was  clipped,  like  that  of  slaves,  and  they  were  not  allowed 
to  let  it  grow  again.  Girls  received  no  religious  in- 
struction, save  that  which  their  mothers  gave  them  in 
relation  to  the  preparation  of  food  allowed  to  be  eaten. 
While  boys  were  initiated  into  the  religion  of  their 
fathers  at  their  thirteenth  birthday,  girls  were  not. 
Women  had  to  occupy  a  separate  gallery  in  the  syna- 
gogue ;  and,  while  a  boy  of  thirteen  years  was  counted  as 
one  of  the  ten  persons  who  formed  a  quorum  for  public 
worship:),  his  grandmother,  mother,  and  older  sisters  were 
excluded.  In  a  word,  a  semblance  of  the  oriental  harem 
was  still  preserved  by  the  Jews  of  the  Occident,  and 
this  piece  of  orientalism  now  had  to  go.  The  reformers 
placed  women  on  an  equal  footing  with  men  ;  they  en- 
couraged them  to  wear  their  own  hair  after  marriage  ; 
they  offered  them  religious  instruction,  and  one  of  the 
first  innovations  was  that  girls  should  be  "  confirmed " 
the  same  as  were  boys  at  the  age  of  thirteen  or  fourteen 
years.  The  separate  gallery  for  women  in  the  synagogues 
was  done  away  with,  and  the  husband  and  father  was 
permitted  to  take  his  wife  and  daughter  into  the  same 
pew  with  him. 

If  this  social  reform  should  be  lasting  and  bring  forth 
the  desired  fruit,  it  was  necessarj^  that  the  Jew  should 
worship  his  God  in  a  manner  which  should  make  him  less 
conspicuous  and  which  would  be  more  in  accord  with  the 
taste  of  the  time.     We  have  seen  that  after  the  destruc- 


ABRAHAM   GEIGER   AND   HIS   TIME  273 

tion  of  the  temple  sacrifices  were  substituted  by  prayers  ; 
ill  course  of  time  a  ritual  grew  up,  in  which  readings  from 
the  Bible  formed  the  central  point,  while  the  prayers  be- 
fore and  after  tlie  reading  were  still  considered  a  substi- 
tute for  the  former  sacrifices.  The  recitation  of  prayers 
was  made  as  obligatory  on  every  individual  Israelite  as 
had  sacrifices  been  before.  It  mattered  little  what  the 
prayer  contained,  whether  it  appealed  to  the  heart  or  how 
it  was  spoken,  if  it  only  was  read  at  the  appointed  hour. 
As  times  went  on,  the  prayer-book  grew  in  thickness,  be- 
cause every  generation  added  prayers,  but  considered  it 
a  sacrilege  to  omit  any.  They  were,  of  course,  spoken  in 
Hebrew,  no  matter  whether  a  man  understood  that  lan- 
guage or  not.  A  peculiar  musical  taste  had  developed, 
and,  while  some  melodies  were  original  and  not  without 
some  musical  merit,  most  of  them  were  taken  from  the 
street,  corrupted  by  the  "  cantor,"  and  fitted  to  any 
prayer,  no  matter  how  much  the  idea  of  the  music  was  in 
discord  with  its  sentiment.  It  was  of  no  rare  occurrence 
that  a  w'altz  or  a  march  was  fitted  to  a  most  solemn 
prayer  or  to  a  most  sublime  adoration  of  God.  Instru- 
mental music,  though  occasional!}^  permitted,  never  be- 
came the  rule,  and  the  organ  was  abhorred  for  no  other 
reason  than  because  Christians  made  use  of  such  an  in- 
strument in  their  churches.  The  reform  movement  intro- 
duced an  organ  and  a  choir  of  boys  ;  it  curtailed  the 
prayer-book,  and  substituted  hymns  and  prayers  in  -the 
vernacular  for  Hebrew  ones. 

The  prayer-book  question  has  remained  to  this  very  day 
a  burning  question.  One  rabbi  excluded  one  prayer, 
another  the  other  ;  but,  as  a  rule,  they  were  all  too  timid 
to  throw  aside  the  whole  prayer-book  and  institute  simul- 
taneous prayers.     They  could    not    yet    tear    themselves 


274  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

away  from  the  idea  that  a  man  was  obliged  to  rehearse  a 
certain  amount  of  prayer,  nor  had  they  the  courage  to 
do  entirely  away  with  a  language  which  nobody,  save 
scholars,  had  time  and  inclination  to  study. 

After  many  years,  and  after  many  struggles,  another 
piece  of  orientalism  was  abolished,  viz.^  the  custom  of 
praying  with  covered  heads. 

When  the  reformers  began  to  remodel  the  order  of  re- 
ligious services,  they  could  not  help  falling  into  a  snare. 
They  endeavored  to  build  up,  but,  while  they  fancied  they 
were  creating  something  original,  they  merely  copied  the 
services  of  their  Christian  neighbors ;  and,  whereas  the 
reform  movement  took  its  firmest  root  in  the  Protestant 
North  of  Germany,  the  Jewish  reform  worship  imitated 
that  of  the  Protestant  church.  In  the  Protestant  church, 
the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  the  sermon,  was  the  principal 
thing.  The  reform  introduced,  therefore,  the  sermon  as 
the  central  point  of  every  service,  and  transformed  the 
rabbi  into  a  preacher,  who  soon  learned  to  co])y  his  pro- 
totype. No  harm  would  have  come  of  this  innovation 
had  reformed  Judaism  developed,  as  it  did  afterwards 
here  in  America,  free  from  the  grasp  of  government  rule. 
In  Germany,  however,  the  government  took  a  hand  in 
every  affair.  The  rabbi,  though  elected  by  the  congrega- 
tion, had  to  be  ratified  by  the  government,  and,  once 
installed  into  office,  could  not  be  discharged  by  the  con- 
gi'egation.  In  every  town  or  city  only  one  congregation 
was  subsidized,  and  dissenters  had  to  uphold  their  tem- 
ples at  their  own  expense,  paying  at  the  same  time  for 
the  support  of  the  synagogue  acknowledged  by  the  gov- 
ernment. Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the  preachers  ceased 
to  be  teachers  plain  and  simple,  and  began  to  assume  the 
r81e  of  priest,  of  a  class  of  men  who  pretended  to  hold  the 


ABRAHAM   GEIGEH    AND    HIS    TIME  275 

key  to  heaven  in  their  pockets.  The  pulpit  is  no  Jewisli 
institution,  it  is  copied  from  the  Christian  chuich,  and 
after  a  short  life  it  has  changed  and  is  changing  into  the 
genuine  Jewish  article,  the  "platform." 

The  reform  movement  could  not  remain  at  a  stand-still 
for  any  length  of  time,  nor  could  it  confine  itself  to  a  re- 
modelling of  the  service  ;  it  naturally  permeated  the  whole 
system,  and  reached  finally  the  interior  department.  If 
the  Jew  was  to  be  a  cosmopolitan,  if  he  was  to  love  the 
country  in  which  he  lived,  if  he  was  to  take  an  active 
part  in  all  its  enterprises,  he  could  no  longer  dream  of  a 
Messiah  nor  of  a  country  of  his  own.  The  belief  in  a 
Messiah  and  in  a  restoration  fell  flatly  to  the  ground,  and 
was  for  some  time  artificially  replaced  by  the  hope  of  a 
Messianic  Era,  i.  e.,  of  a  time  when  all  nations  would 
reach  the  ultimate  goal  of  happiness  and  would  be  united 
in  the  bonds  of  brotherly  love  under  the  universal  govern- 
ment of  Israel's  God.  Under  these  conditions,  it  became 
the  mission  of  Israel  to  work  with  all  his  might  for  the 
realization  of  this  hope. 

The  study  of  history  and  its  modern  critical  examina- 
tion made  the  Jew  appear  in  a  new  and  most  brilliant 
light.  He  could  point  with  pride  to  the  numerous  bene- 
factors of  humanity,  to  the  numerous  philosophers  and  poets 
which  his  nation  had  produced,  and  of  whom  former  times 
had  known  little  or  nothing,  and  he  could  take  a  pride  in 
saying,  "  I  am  one  of  them  ;  T  am  also  a  Jew."  He  could 
show  the  lack  of  authentic  material  in  the  history  of 
Christianity,  and  could  face  his  Christian  neighbors  with 
proofs  of  the  cruelty  and  the  lack  of  love  with  which 
their  ancestors  had  treated  his  race.  In  fact,  for  more 
than  half  a  century  Jewish  pulpit  orators  would  speak  of 
nothing  else  than  the  wrongs  which  the  Jews  had  suffered 


276  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

during  the  Middle  Ages,  and  this  self-commiseration  served 
excellently  as  a  defence  of  Judaism,  and  furnished  for  the 
time  being  a  plausible  reason  why  we  to-day  should  ac- 
cept as  true  what  Jewish  martyrs  had  considered  to  be 
true. 

These  are  the  chief  changes  which  the  reform  move- 
ment has  produced.  It  may  seem,  at  first  sight,  as  if  all 
concessions  made  by  us  to  our  neighbors  had  remained 
without  a  concession  on  their  part  to  us.  This  is,  how- 
ever, not  so.  For  every  distinguishing  mark  which  we 
have  removed,  we  have  received  an  equivalent  acknowl- 
edgment ;  and,  although  the  last  word  is  not  yet  spoken, 
and  a  great  many  of  our  hopes  have  not  yet  been  realized, 
still,  the  blind  can  see  that  a  more  cordial  feeling  than 
ever  before  has  been  established.  It  would  be  folly  on 
our  part  to  expect  that  what  eighteen  centuries  have 
spoiled  could  be  made  good  in  a  single  one.  The  prog- 
ress which  we  have  made  towards  a  more  harmonious 
feeling  is  out  of  proportion  with  the  shortness  of  time  in 
which  it  has  been  accomplished  ;  and,  whenever  we  think 
we  have  cause  to  complain  of  prejudice,  we  ought  not 
to  forget  that  we,  too,  have  not  entirely  extinguished  the 
last  sparks  of  prejudice  against  those  who  differ  with  us. 

One  of  the  foremost  re[)resentatives  of  the  reform 
movement  was  Abraham  Geiger.  Ha  was  born  in  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main,  May  24,  1810,  and  died  in  Berlin,  in 
October,  1874.  He  received  a  thorough  Talmudical  edu- 
cation, but  also  a  more  modern  one,  so  that  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  Universities  of  Heidelberg  and  Bonn.  His 
favorite  studies  were  oriental  languages,  and  already  in 
1831  he  gained  a  prize  for  an  essay  on  the  Jewish  sources 
of  the  Koran.  In  1833  he  was  installed  as  rabbi  in 
Wiesbaden,  and  in  1835  he  published,  jointly  with  other 


ABRAHAM   GEIGER   AND   HIS   TIME  277 

scholarly  men,  a  periodical  called  "  Zeitschrift  fuer  Jue- 
dische  Literatur."  In  1838  he  was  called  to  Breslau,  and 
in  that  city  he  began  his  reformatory  career.  The  large 
Jewish  congregation  split ;  one  part  (the  larger  one)  re- 
mained, with  the  chief  rabbi,  Abraham  Ticktin,  the  repre- 
sentative of  orthodoxy  ;  the  other  part,  smaller  but  more 
intelligent,  followed  the  leadership  of  Geiger.  They 
opened  a  synagogue,  called  "  tem})le,"  for  him,  in  which 
he  established  a  more  orderly  service,  with  organ  and 
choir.  This  was  then  considered  a  radical  innovation. 
Besides  defending  in  his  weekly  sermons  the  movement 
of  which  he  was  the  acknowledged  champion,  he  wrote 
and  published  numerous  and  valuable  historical  researches 
and  was  instrumental  in  bringing  about  several  rabbinical 
conventions  for  the  purpose  of  settling  the  burning  ques- 
tions of  the  day.  At  the  second  convention  lie  was  vice- 
president,  and  at  the  third  he  served  as  president.  In 
1863  he  removed  to  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  and  from  1870 
to  his  death,  which  occurred  in  1874,  he  was  rabbi  of  the 
reformed  congregation  of  Berlin. 

He  was  a  man  of  medium  size,  and  wore  his  hair  after 
the  fashion  of  the  German  Protestant  ministers,  in  lonar 
locks  around  his  shoulders.  Whether  it  was  voluntary  or 
involuntary,  I  will  not  decide,  but  he  copied  the  solemn 
ways  of  his  models  admirably.  His  delivery  was  very 
pathetic  —  salbungsvoU,  as  the  German  idiom  more  fitly 
expresses  it.  His  profound  scholarship  has  made  him  an 
authority  in  many  questions  of  historical  importance,  and 
the  Jews  could  point  with  just  pride  to  him  as  one  of 
their  most  intelligent  leaders,  who  was  able  to  defend  their 
religion  with  weapons  taken  from  the  armory  of  reason. 

The  reform  movement  was  succored  not  only  by  the  in- 
telligence  of  the  time,  but  also   by   a  sentiment   which 


278  DISSOLVIXG    VIEWS 

stands  still  higher  than  intelligence,  viz.^  by  charity.  No 
sooner  had  the  Jews  at  the  beginning  of  our  century 
passed  through  the  ordeal  which  I  described  in  my  last 
lecture,  no  sooner  had  they  learned  that  they  could  find 
in  purified  Judaism  all  the  liberty  of  action  and  all  the 
happiness  which  they  desired,  no  sooner  had  they  found 
themselves  officered  by  men  like  Abraham  Geiger,  than 
conversions  to  Christianity  ceased  entirely  and  they  be- 
gan to  be  proud  of  being  Jews.  They  felt  at  the  same 
time  that  charity  and  loving  deeds  stood  above  all  relig- 
ious theory,  and  their  rich  men  began  to  rival  each  other 
in  charitable  undertakings.  Again,  the  number  of  such 
men  avIio  have  reflected  honor  upon  both  Judaism  and  the 
Jews  by  deeds  of  charity  is  so  large  that  I  hesitate  to 
select  one  of  them  as  a  sample,  for  fear  of  being  unjust  to 
the  rest.  However,  the  best  known  and  most  renowned 
philanthropist  of  our  century  is  Moses  Montefiore,  and 
therefore  I  have  selected  him  as  the  central  figure  of  my 
next  lecture. 


XXII. 

MOSES   MONTEFIORE   AND   HIS   TIME 

The  most  profitable  and  best  remunerative  of  all  vir- 
tues seems  to  be  charity.  A  Hebrew  proverb  says  that  it 
"  saves  from  death,"  and  according  to  the  popular  adage 
it  covers  at  least  "a  multitude  of  sins."  To  part  with 
one's  own  possessions  in  favor  of  another  person  without 
the  hope  or  desire  of  reciprocation  seems  to  be  so  diffi- 
cult, so  much  in  conflict  with  the  general  nature  of  man, 
and  to  require  so  great  an  exertion  of  our  moral  qualities, 
that  we  cannot  bestow  enough  praise  upon  the  man  who 
(overcomes  the  difficulty,  conquers  his  own  nature,  and 
brings  that  moral  pressure  upon  his  pocket-book  which 
is  required  to  open  it,  and  to  allow  some  of  its  contents  to 
run  into  the  channels  of  charity.  So  highly  esteemed  is 
that  virtue  that  we  encourage  it  bj^  the  highest  awards. 
Of  all  virtuous  persons,  he  who  gives  never  fails  to  be  ap- 
preciated, no  matter  why  he  gives,  what  he  gives,  how  he 
gives,  or  to  whom  he  gives.  In  our  gratefulness,  we  are 
willing  to  overlook  his  foibles,  not  seldom  his  vices.  We 
allow  his  errors  to  pass  without  comment,  and  hesitate  to 
contradict  any  of  his  opinions,  because  he  is  so  liberal  a 
man,  who,  if  he  does  not  always  act  right,  at  least  meaiis 
so  well.  The  appreciation,  verging  almost  to  adoration, 
which  follows  charity,  is  a  signal  proof  both  of  the  rarity 
of  the  genuine  article  and  the  still  imperfect  state  of 
human  society.  When  humanity  will  have  reached  the 
goal  of  perfection,  charity  will  become  useless,  cease  to  be 

2T9 


280  DISSOLVlJifG   VIEWS 

a  virtue,  and  consequently  to  be  appreciated  as  such. 
The  helpless  will  then  receive  the  needed  support  as  a 
"right"  which  is  due  to  them,  and  the  relatively  poor  will 
be  too  proud  to  accept  any  kind  of  comfort  from  his  more 
fortunate  brother  for  which  he  will  not  be  able  to  offer  an 
equivalent.  Asylums,  hospitals,  and  schools  where  the 
needy  are  sheltered,  cured,  and  instructed,  ought  not  to  be 
called  charitable  institutions,  nor  ouglit  they  to  be  sup- 
ported by  what  is  called  private  charity  ;  they  ought  to 
be  state  institutions,  and  their  benefactions  ought  to  be 
granted  as  a  debt  which  society  owes  to  the  individual. 
Every  citizen  ought  to  be  taxed  for  the  support  of  such 
institutions,  as  he  is  for  the  support  of  a  police  force  or  a 
fire  department,  but  he  ought  to  receive  in  exchange  the 
right  to  be  admitted  into  any  of  them  if  sickness,  in- 
firmity, or  old  age  should  compel  him  to  seek  refuge 
therein,  without  tlie  stigma  of  being  a  burden  to  the  com- 
munity or  of  being  a  recipient  of  state  charities.  Dona- 
tions given  to  those  who  cannot  be  classed  among  the 
helpless,  which  are  intended  rather  to  provide  greater 
comfort  than  to  relieve  actual  need,  and  which  generally 
pass  by  the  name  of  charities,  never  prove  a  blessing  to 
the  recipient ;  they  are  degrading,  and  destro}^  what  little 
manhood  there  is  left  in  him.  But,  as  I  said  before,  we 
have  not  yet  arrived  at  that  height  of  perfection ;  we  are 
still  glad  to  receive  without  giving  any  other  equivalent 
than  a  "  thank  3''ou,"  or  "  God  bless  you."  Philanthropists 
are  still  in  demand,  and  their  charity  is  still  highly  appre- 
ciated and  widely  advertised  for  the  purpose  of  inducing 
others  to  emulate  their  example.  Indeed,  charity  still 
proves  an  excellent  cover  for  a  multitude  of  sins,  and  woe 
to  the  man  who  dares  to  depreciate  the  donor  or  his  dona- 
tion . 


MOSES    MONTEFIOKE    AND    HIS    TIME  281 

If  charity,  as  I  maintain,  is  an  attempt  to  compromise 
between  the  rights  of  the  individual  and  the  imperfect 
state  of  society,  if  it  is  a  kind  of  pendulum  to  regulate 
the  relation  between  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  fortunate 
and  the  unfortunate,  it  becomes  self-evident  that  it  will 
and  must  adapt  itself  to  the  demands  of  the  time,  and 
that,  therefore,  not  only  the  views  on  charity,  but  its 
practice,  are  subject  to  constant  changes.  Hospitality, 
tliat  is,  the  reception  of  strangers  in  the  home-circles, 
was  in  times  passed  by  one  of  the  foremost  charities, 
and  especially  among  Jews  was  this  branch  of  charity 
most  highly  cultivated.  The  Jew,  being  a  business  man, 
was  a  great  traveller.  The  roads  were  bad  and  insecure ; 
hotels  not  frequent,  and,  after  all,  useless  to  him,  partly 
on  account  of  the  prejudice  with  which  he  was  treated, 
partly  on  account  of  the  prejudice  which  he  harbored 
against  the  mode  of  living  in. which  his  neighbors  indulged. 
It  became,  therefore,  a  matter  of  necessity  that  one  Is- 
raelite should  show  hospitality  to  the  other.  Into  what- 
ever Jewish  house  he  came  he  was  at  home ;  the  poorest 
of  the  poor  would  share  his  last  morsel  with  a  stranger 
who  would  happen  to  knock  at  his  door.  All  charity  was 
then  of  a  private  nature,  and  attempts  to  organize  it  were 
made  only  in  such  cases  when,  as  in  a  general  calamity, 
individual  charity  became  insufficient.  Not  sooner,  how- 
ever, had  the  new  era  created  new  conditions  than  the 
sharp  eye  of  the  Jew  observed  that  the  system  of  'his 
charities,  if  it  was  to  keep  up  with  the  demands  of  the 
time,  must  assume  a  different  form  and  grow  to  larger 
dimensions.  Public  charitable  institutions,  in  which  the 
poor  were  taken  care  of,  sprang  up  like  mushrooms. 
There  was  hardly  a  large  city  in  Europe  where  rich  Israel- 
ites did  nut  found  and  endow  hospitals,  orphan  asyhims, 


282  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

homes  for  the  aged  and  infirm,  schools  where  the  children 
of  the  poor  were  to  be  instructed;  in  short,  both  the 
orthodox  and  the  reform  party  vied  with  each  otlier  which 
of  them  could  boast  of  the  most  charitable  men.  When- 
ever an  Israelite,  in  spite  of  bis  indifference  to  what  was 
called  religion,  interested  himself  in  a  charitable  under- 
taking, the  reform  jjarty  would  glory  in  it  as  if  he  was  a 
fruit  of  its  work ;  whenever  an  orthodox  excelled  in  that 
laudable  virtue,  his  wing  would  prove  by  it,  not  that  their 
members,  too,  were  capable  of  acts  of  charity,  but  that 
their  maxims  must  be  right  because  men  of  such  signal 
charitability  performed  promptly  and  conscientiously  the 
very  ceremonies  which  the  reformers  rejected  as  obsolete. 
The  real  fact,  however,  was  that  no  sooner  had  social 
circles  opened  themselves  for  the  Jew,  no  sooner  had  he 
stepped  out  of  his  former  seclusion,  than  he  became  pub- 
lic-spirited, and  felt  called  upon  to  improve  social  condi- 
tions as  far  as  he  was  able  to,  and  to  compromise  by  deeds 
of  charity  between  the  real  world  as  it  is,  and  the  ideal 
world  as  it  ought  to  be.  While  the  pessimists  of  the 
early  part  of  this  century,  not  unlike  those  of  torday, 
predicted  the  dissolution  of  both  Judaism  and  tlie  Jewish 
race,  merely  because  they  were  changing  their  outward 
appearance,  new  life  began  to  circulate,  new  forces  began 
to  concentrate,  and  the  Jews  showed  to  the  world  by  lib- 
eral deeds,  by  facts  that  spoke  louder  for  them  than  the 
most  glorious  orations,  that  they  were  not  a  foreign  ele- 
ment, that  they  were  not  clannish  and  seclusive,  that  they 
were  not  lacking  in  neighborly  love,  that  they  were  not 
mere  money -grabbers,  but  that  they  were  as  public-spirited, 
as  liberal,  and  as  charitable  as  their  fellow-citizens.  The 
world  could  not  help  acknowledging  such  evident  facts, 
and  before  half  the  century  had  passed,  the  Jew  had  won 
for  himself  the  esteem  of  the  intelligent  world. 


MOSES    MONTEFIORE   AND    HIS    TIME  288 

A  sad  ev^ut  occurred  then,  which  afforded  a  brilliant 
demonstration,  not  only  that  Judaism  had  not  died  out, 
but  that  it  enjoyed  greater  strength  and  better  health  than 
ever  before;  that  orthodoxy  and  reform,  though  differing 
in" matters  of  minor  im[)ortance,  would  stand  together  in 
all  questions  of  general  importance,  and  that  by  force  of 
their  newly  acquired  intelligence  the}'  could  make  them- 
selves heard  in  the  world.  They  needed  no  longer  to 
suffer  undeservedly  an  ill-treatment,  but  the  intelligent 
among  them  could  now  stand  up  manfully  for  their  rights, 
assured  of  the  moral  support  of  their  fellow-citizens. 

It  happened  in  Damascus,  in  the  year  1840,  that  two 
Christians,  a  friar.  Father  Thomas,  and  his  servant,  sud- 
denly disappeared.  The  rumor  .spread  that  they  must 
have  been  murdered,  and  the  monks  appealed  to  the 
French  consul,  Count  Ratti  Menton,  to  investigate  the 
matter,  and  to  bring  the  culprit  to  justice.  The  monk, 
who  had  never  enjoyed  a  very  good  reputation,  had  been 
seen  a  day  previous  to  his  disappearance,  quarrelling  with 
a  Turkish  mule-driver  ;  still,  this  clew  was  entirely  disre- 
garded, and  suspicion  was  fastened  upon  the  Jews,  of 
whom  about  five  thousand  were  then  living  in  that  city. 

The  old  mediseval  fable  that  the  Jews  needed  human 
blood  during  the  passover  festival,  seemed  not  to  have 
died  out,  or  was  revived  for  the  occasion,  and  it  was  said 
that  they  had  murdered  the  monk  and  his  servant  for  the 
sake  of  obtaining  their  blood. 

The  political  situation  of  the  Orient  was  then  a  peculiar 
one,  and  what  we  call  now  the  oriental  question  was  then 
developing  as  a  germ.  Mehemet  Ali,  the  Pasha  of  Egypt, 
had  not  only  made  himself  independent  of  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey,  but,  after  some  military  victories  over  his 
former  master,  he  had  annexed  Syria  and  Palestine  to  his 


284  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

dominions.  France,  for  reasons  best  knuwii  to  herself, 
assisted  the  usurper,  and  her  consuls  were  therefore  all- 
powerful  in  Egypt.  The  governor  of  Damascus,  lioping 
to  make  money  out  of  such  an  affair,  was  more  than  will- 
ing to  accommodate  the  French  consul.  Several  Jews 
were  now  arrested  and  tortured ;  they  were  asked  to  con- 
fess a  crime  of  which  they  had  not  the  least  knowledge. 
The  most  cruel  treatment  of  the  prisoners  failed  to  pro- 
duce any  proof,  nor  did  soldiers  who  demolished  the 
houses  of  several  Jewish  residents  find  a  trace  of  the 
missing  man.  A  Jewish  young  man,  who  came  to  testify 
that  he  had  seen  the  monk  entering  the  store  of  a  Turkish 
merchant  a  short  time  previous  to  his  disappearance,  was 
not  given  credence,  but  was  beaten  so  unmercifully  that 
he  died  of  the  injuries  received  in  the  same  night.  The 
Turkish  servant  of  David  Arari,  one  of  the  seven  incrim- 
inated Jews,  finally  confessed,  under  torture,  that  his 
master  had  ordered  hiin  to  kill  the  friar,  and  even  showed 
the  place  where  he  had  thrown  the  bones  into  the  water. 
The  place  was  dragged,  but  only  the  bone  of  some  ani- 
mal and  a  piece  of  rag  were  found.  The  prisoners  were 
now  subjected  to  still  greater  tortures ;  they  must  pro- 
duce the  bottle  filled  with  blood  which  they  were  said  to 
liave  drawn  from  their  victims ;  but  all  was  in  vain.  New 
arrests  were  made,  until  finally  the  Austrian  consul  pro- 
tested against  the  cruelties  perpetrated  on  these  innocent 
persons,  and  protected  an  Austrian  citizen,  Picciotto,  who 
was  to  be  arrested.  To  strengthen  the  suspicion  against 
the  Jews,  a  similar  case  occurred  about  the  same  time 
upon  the  island  of  Rhodes.  A  Turkish  lad  had  com- 
mitted suicide,  and  the  rumor  spread  that  the  Jews  had 
killed  him  in  order  to  obtain  his  blood.  Also  in  Juelich, 
a  town  near  the  Rhine,  it  was  reported  that  a  travelling 


MOSES   MONTEFIORE   AND    HIS   TIME  285 

Jew  had  made  an  attempt  to  kill  a  Christian  child,  and, 
improbable  as  it  will  appear  to  future  historians,  all  these 
tales  were  believed  by  Christians,  in  the  very  mid'dle  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  in  spite  of  their  absurdity.  The 
time,  however,  when  such  accusations  could  have  a  last- 
ing  effect  had  passed.  In  Juelich,  a  prompt  investigation 
made  by  the  Prussian  authorities  showed  that  the  whole 
affair  had  been  a  scheme  concocted  by  some  Jew-haters, 
and  the  innocence  of  the  incriminated  persons  was  proven 
within  a  few  weeks.  In  Rhodes,  though  the  persecution 
lasted  a  longer  time,  the  true  facts  were  finally  estab- 
lished, and  the  innocent  sufferers  indemnified;  but  the 
Damascus  affair  was  not  so  easily  settled.  The  French 
government  wished  to  shield  the  consul,  the  Egyptian 
government  could  not  afford  to  expose  its  true  nature, 
and  the  Jews  were  therefore  compelled  to  bring  the 
utmost  pressure  to  bear  upon  both  governments,  in  order 
to  free  themselves  of  an  accusation  which  was  as  untrue 
as  it  was  absurd ;  and  they  rose  to  the  emergency.  They 
forgot  their  quarrels  about  reform,  and  tlie  best  men  of 
both  camps  stood  up  to  refute  indignantly  such  a  shame- 
less calumny.  Creraieux,  in  France,  and  Moses  Monte- 
fiore,  in  England,  placed  themselves  at  the  head  of  the 
movement.  The  intelligent  Israelites  of  the  Occident 
espoused  at  once  the  cause  of  their  less  intelligent  breth- 
ren of  the  Orient.  The  same  press  which  had  given  a 
wide  circulation  to  the  slanderous  falsehood  gave  now  as 
Avide  a  circulation  to  the  refutation  of  the  charge.  The 
intelligent  of  all  denominations  joined  with  the  Jews 
against  their  accusers,  and,  inasmuch  as  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Jews  demanded  nothing  more  than  that  justice 
should  be  meted  out,  their  voices  were  heard.  For  the 
first   time   in   the  history  of  the  world   it  happened    that 


286  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

Jews  dared  to  approach  the  throne  of  a  despot,  not  to 
beg  as  Jews  for  their  coreligionists,  but  to  demand  as 
citizens  of  England  and  France  that  for  the  sake  of 
humanity  a  just  and  fair  trial  should  be  granted  to 
the  suspected  citizens  of  Damascus.  The  success  with 
which  the  mission  of  Cremieux  and  Moses  Montefiore  was 
crowned  is  so  well  known  that  I  need  not  dwell  upon  it: 
and  it  serves  to  prove,  if  it  proves  anything,  that  times 
had  changed,  and  that  the  Jews  had  conquered  for  them- 
selves a  position  from  the  height  of  which  they  were  able 
to  defend  themselves  and  to  defy  all  the  evil  machinations 
of  their  enemies. 

Of  the  two  men  who  at  that  time  had  risen  upon  the 
crest  of  the  popular  wave,  and  for  the  time  being  had 
served  as  acknowledged  representatives  of  the  Jews,  one, 
Adolph  Cremieux,  seems  to  have  been  selected  on  account 
of  his  successful  career  as  a  lawyer.  His  great  juridical 
knowledge,  his  power  as  an  orator,  seemed  to  be  of  the 
greatest  utility  in  a  trial  in  which  not  only  the  innocence 
of  a  few  individuals  was  to  be  established,  but  in  which 
one  of  the  most  infamous  accusations,  brought  forth 
againsj;  the  whole  Jewish  community,  was  to  be  refuted. 
Had  the  incriminated  parties  been  charged  merely  with 
homicide  for  the  purpose  of  gain  or  revenge,  it  would 
have  mattered  little,  for  the  Jews  themselves  would  have 
helped  to  bring  the  culprit  to  justice ;  but  such  was  not 
the  case.  The  prisoners  had  been  accused  of  having 
murdered  persons  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  their  blood 
for  religious  purposes.  If  such  an  accusation  was  sub- 
stantiated, every  Israelite,  no  matter  where  he  lived,  was 
implicated  more  or  less  as  an  accomplice  ;  but  if  not, 
such  malicious  slander  should  now  receive  its  deserved 
punishment  and  the  slanderous  tongue  be  silenced  forever. 


MOSES   MONTEFIORE   AND   HIS   TIME  287 

It  is,  therefore,  not  at  all  surprising  that  the  eye  of  the 
Jewish  community  fell  upon  a  lawyer  and  orator  such  as 
was  Cremieux ;  but  what  was  it  that  made  the  Israelites 
look  with  such  great  expectancy  upon  Moses  Montefiore  ? 
What  made  them  concede  to  him  even  the  first  place  in 
the  embassy?  Here  I  shall  reach  the  main  point  of  my 
subject.  Since  the  fiasco  and  exposure  of  the  would-be 
Messiali,  Sabbathai  Zwi,  the  hope  of  the  restoration  of 
the  Jewish  nationality  upon  the  sacred  soil  of  Palestine 
had  become  a  mere  theor}^  as  which  it  still  lingered,  while 
practically  no  efforts  were  made  to  realize  it.  Only  a 
few  passages  in  the  prayer-book  reminded  of  it,  and 
beggars  pretending  to  come  from  Jerusalem,  the  holy 
city,  who  travelled  through  all  countries,  would  still  absorb 
the  lion's  share  of  all  Jewish  charities ;  but  this  was  all. 
(The  residents  of  Jerusalem  lived,  in  fact,  on  nothing  but 
the  charities  which  they  levied,  through  their  travelling 
agents,  upon  their  western  coreligionists.)  When  the 
Jews  began  to  feel  that  they  must  abandon  such  hopes, 
even  in  theory,  before  they  could  be  recognized  as  citi- 
zens with  equal  rights  in  the  countries  in  which  they  were 
living,  the  leaders  of  the  reform  movement  decreed  the 
erasure  of  all  such  passages  froin  tlie  prayer-book  which 
alluded  to  the  Messiah  or  to  the  restoration  of  a  Jewish 
nationality.  The  masses,  however,  were  not  j^et  read}" 
to  turn  into  the  new  road,  because  they  felt  that  with  the 
surrender  of  the  old  Messianic  hopes,  which,  as  theories, 
had  been  as  harmless  as  they  had  been  ineffective,  the 
whole  structure  of  Judaism  would  have  to  be  subjected  to 
a  modification.  They  felt  that  the  whole  mission  of  Juda- 
ism would  have  to  be  changed,  and  its  aims  and  ends 
would  have  to  be  sought  for  in  a  different  direction  than 
they  had  been  accustomed  to  look  for  them.     Tliey  felt 


288  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

instinctively  that  the  sun'ender  of  the  Messianic  theories 
meant  setting  fire  to  the  old  house,  and  they  hesitated  to 
resort  to  that  measure. 

While  in  Germany,  where  the  struggle  for  reform  was 
waging  most  fiercely,  the  reformers  were  in  the  ascend- 
ency and  were  supjDorted  by  the  intelligence  of  their  time, 
in  other  countries,  and  especially  in  England,  the  condi- 
tions were  totally  reversed.  The  Jews  of  England  enjoyed 
greater  freedom  than  their  coreligionists  in  Germany. 
They  needed  not  to  struggle  for  it,  the}'  had  what  they 
wanted.  England  was  politically  a  free  country,  and  the 
number  of  Jewish  residents  was  so  very  small  that  their 
seclusiveness,  and  the  difference  of  their  customs  was 
hardly  noticed  by  the  public  eye.  The  public  almost 
ignored  the  Jew,  and  thus  allowed  him  to  share  the  free- 
dom which  every  Englishman  enjoyed.  In  addition  to 
this,  the  Jews  of  England  could  hardly  be  called  natives 
of  that  country,  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  word  was 
applicable  to  the  Jews  of  Germany  or  Russia.  They  were 
mere  residents  ;  they  were  split  into  small  German,  Polish, 
and  Portuguese  congregations,  and  these  had  to  exert 
themselves  to  preserve  the  distinctive  marks  of  their  dif- 
feient  colonies.  They  cared,  therefore,  little  for  a  move- 
ment which  was  to  win  back  for  the  Jew  the  confidence 
of  his  fellow-citizens  and  to  place  him  upon  an  even  foot- 
ing with  them  ;  they  cared  little  for  reform,  they  objected 
to  it,  and  remained  strictly  orthodox.  In  England,  fur- 
thermore, the  Jews  lacked,  like  the  rest  of  the  English 
people,  a  healthy  middle  class ;  they  were  either  enor- 
mously rich  or  miserably  poor ;  either  highly  educated  or 
v.a-etchedly  ignorant.  The  few  wealthy  Jews,  such  as  the 
Rothschilds,  Goldsmiths,  and  Montefiores,  were  the  excep- 
tion, not  the  rule  ;  the  public  knew  them,  while  men  like 


MOSES   MONTEFIORE   AND   HIS   TIME  289 

Dickens  seemed  to  have  had  no  knowledge  whatsoever  of 
the  true  life  of  the  average  Jew.  These  few  were  highly 
respected  on  account  of  their  position  in  the  financial 
world,  and  ])erhaps  also  on  account  of  their  intelligence  ; 
and  whenever  they  indulged  in  the  exhibition  of  some 
orthodox  rites,  the  English  would  look  upon  such  queer 
actions  on  their  part  as  they  would  upon  the  freaks  of 
their  nobility,  and  even  find  something  to  admire  in  them. 
The  other  Jews,  too,  would  look  with  astonishment  at 
the  privileged  position  of  these  few  of  their  brethren, 
and  hail  as  good  and  infallibly  right  whatever  any  mem- 
ber of  these  families  might  feel  inclined  to  adopt  as  a  re- 
ligious practice  for  himself.  These  envied  «ieu  were,  on 
tlieir  part,  too  much  occupied  with  their  extended  com- 
mercial enterprises  to  meddle  with  religious  matters. 
They  were  satisfied  to  leave  well  enough  alone ;  they 
bought  off  their  oblig^ations  to  Judaism  with  the  enormous 
sums  of  money  which  they  annually  expended  in  charities, 
and  thus  they  became  rather  champions  of  orthodoxy  than 
leaders  of  the  reform  movement.  It  could  not  fail  that 
some  of  them  should  have  their  hobbies,  which  they  would 
groom  in  truly  English  fashion,  and  whenever  these  hob- 
bies were  of  a  religious  nature  their  coreligionists  did  not 
fail  to  cheer  them  whenever  they  paraded  upon  them. 
Such  a  hobby  was  the  chimera  of  a  national  restoration 
of  the  Jews  upon  sacred  ground,  and  its  rider  was  Sir 
Moses  Montefiore. 

Born  in  1784,  in  London,  of  a  wealthy  Jewisli  family 
of  bankers,  he  had  married,  in  1810,  into  the  Rothschild 
family.  His  marriage  having  remained  without  children, 
and  being  independently  rich,  he  was  exactly  the  man 
who  might  cherish  some  hobby  of  his  own,  and  he  might 
have  chosen  a  worse  one.     He  had  been  brought  up  amid 


290  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

the  customs  and  usages  of  the  past  century,  and  still  he 
had  inhaled  the  morning  breeze  of  the  new  day.  While 
he  would  take  a  hand  in  all  modern  enterprises,  or  make 
a  proper  use  of  the  attainments  of  the  present  age,  the 
memories  of  the  past  would  still  haunt  him.  He  held 
strictly  to  the  minutest  prescriptions  of  the  table  laws, 
even  while  travelling ;  he  would  adhere  punctually  to  all 
those  rites  and  forms  by  which  the  Jew  had  been  forced 
into  his  seclusiveness,  and  he  never  thought  that  what  a 
rich  man  like  Moses  Montefiore  could  do  was  not  always 
the  rigfht  things  to  be  established  as  a  norm  for  the  masses. 
After  all,  he  clung  to  the  belief  that  a  restoration  of  the 
Jewish  nationality  was  both  desirable  and  possible.  Pal- 
estine was  to  him  more  than  a  classical  country;  he 
revered  it  as  sacred  ground.  In  1829  he  visited  Pales- 
tine, most  assuredly  with  the  same  expectations  as  did 
Jehuda  Halevi  some  centuries  before  him,  and  most  prob- 
ably with  the  view  of  finding  through  personal  inspection 
the  road  which  might  lead  to  a  realization  of  his  chimeri- 
cal hopes.  In  how  far  the  sight  of  the  Holy  Land  may 
have  sobered  down  his  enthusiasm  cannot  be  stated ;  his 
ideals,  however,  dissolved  into  a  mist.  Experience  had 
taught  him  a  great  lesson.  He  had  seen  with  his  own 
eyes  the  degraded  position  of  the  oriental  Jews,  and  that 
if  the  Holy  Land  were  ever  to  become  a  central  station 
for  the  Jews  of  the  world,  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
that  those  who  lived  nearest  to  it  should  be  elevated  to  a 
higher  plane.  To  this  task  he  devoted  almost  his  whole 
life  and  all  his  energies,  though,  according  to  my  estima- 
tion, he  never  adopted  the  right  measures.  The  only 
means  to  assure  success  in  that  direction  would  have 
been  to  break  the  bonds  of  a  superannuated  ritual,  which 
in  those  countries  passed  among  the  Jews  for  religion ;  to 


MOSES    MONTEFIORE    AND    HIS    TIME  291 

remove  —  as  did  the  reformers  —  all  the  old  walls,  hedges, 
and  mark-stones  which  separated  tlie  Jew  from  his  fellow- 
citizens.  But  for  such  a  task  Montefiore  had  neither  the 
understanding  nor  the  inclination.  Still,  he  did  what  he 
could,  and  as  he  best  understood  it.  He  spent  money 
with  full  hands,  caring  little  whether  it  reached  the 
deserving  poor  or  the  professional  beggar.  He  instituted 
schools,  and  appealed  to  the  rulers  of  the  land  to  recall 
all  such  laws  as  placed  the  Jew  at  a  disadvantage. 

Thoroughly  familiar  with  the  conditions  of  the  Eastern 
Jews,  he  was  exactly  the  man  who  could  do  more  than 
anybody  else  for  them,  and  it  was  for  that  reason  that  he 
was  delegated.  The  success  of  his  mission  may  be  as- 
cribed to  a  great  extent  not  alone  to  his  personal  knowl- 
edge of  oriental  customs,  which  he  had  acquired  in  1829, 
but  to  the  information  which  he  had  gained  since  his  visit 
to  Jerusalem  through  the  cultivation  of  his  hobby.  From 
that  time  his  fame  was  assured,  and  he  felt  himself  called 
upon  to  be  an  advocate  for  the  oppressed  Jews  of  all 
countries.  He  travelled  to  Russia  and  interceded  with 
the  Czar  for  the  Jews  living  in  his  dominions;  he  took 
active  though  ineffective  steps  in  the  Mortara  affair,  and 
became  thus  the  world-renowned  champion  and  represen- 
tative of  the  Jews.  The  old  age  which  he  reached  added 
to  the  lustre  of  his  fame,  and  when,  two  years  ago,  he 
died,  a  centenarian,  the  whole  world  mourned  for  him  as 
one  of  the  noblest  philanthropists  who  has  ever  lived 
upon  this  earth. 

His  charity,  however,  was  the  cover  for  a  multitude,  not 
of  sins  —  because  his  morals  and  the  motives  for  all  his 
actions  were  above  suspicion,  and  as  pure  as  the  falling 
snow  —  but  of  mistakes  and  errors.  The  world,  as  usual, 
cheered  the  giver,  merely  because   he   gave,  and  cared 


292  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

little  whether  actual  good  was  accomplished  b}^  his  outlay 
or  not.  Without  depreciating  in  the  least  the  motives  of 
the  giver,  we  may  sa_y  that  a  hirge  part,  if  not  the  largest 
part  of  the  money  which  he  spent  in  charities  was  \\'asted. 
Sir  Moses  gave  without  discrimination.  Any  person  who 
would  touch  Ins  heart  by  the  recital  of  misery  would 
receive  a  donation  of  him.  He  rarely  investigated,  and 
we  know  that  sums  of  his  money  have  reached  Boston  for 
purposes  which  cannot  be  classified  under  the  name  of 
charity.  He  furthermore  lavished  his  money  in  the  ser- 
vice of  a  cause  which  was  doomed.  His  money  was  spent 
in  furtherance  of  the  cause  of  dying  orthodoxy  :  his  eyes 
were  still  directed  towards  the  East :  his  money  and  per- 
sonal influence  upheld  artificially  the  vain  hope  of  the 
restoration  of  the  Jewish  nationality,  and,  though  it  could 
not  suppress  it,  it  impeded  at  least  the  growth  and  the  de- 
velopment of  modern  Judaism.  A  man  has  the  right  to 
spend  his  money  as  he  pleases,  especiall}^  if  he  means  well 
and  gives  it  away  without  hope  or  desire  of  getting, 
returns  from  the  outlay  for  himself,  and  yet  there  is  a 
vast  difference  between  the  man  who  gives  intelligently, 
who  bestows  his  money  where  it  does  the  most  good,  and 
the  one  who  gives  indiscriminately  for  the  gratification  of 
a  whim  or  fur  tlie  cultivation  of  a  hobby.  The  first  one 
is  the  true  benefactor  of  humanity  ;  the  second  one  aids 
mankind  only  indirectly.  There  were  plenty  of  noble  men, 
such  as,  for  example,  the  late  FraSnkel  of  Breslau,  who 
have  done  much  more  for  their  coreligionists,  both  in  quan-. 
tity  and  quality,  than  has  Sir  Moses,  though  their  fame  has 
not  reached  beyond  the  circles  of  tlieir  philanthropic 
activity.  If  we  are  to  profit  by  the  study  of  history,  we 
must  learn  to  be  strictly  just,  we  must  learn  to  measure 
men  not  by  what  their  friends  thought  and  said  of  them 


MOSES   MONTEFIOEE   AND   HIS   TIME  298 

but  by  what  they  actually  did ;  we  must  not  allow  our- 
selves to  be  bribed  by  the  munificent  gifts  which  they 
expended  apparently  for  the  welfare  of  their  fellow-beings. 
Moses  Montefiore,  with  all  his  noble  qualities,  with  all 
his  magnanimity,  with  all  his  liberality,  has  rather  re- 
tarded than  advanced  the  progress  of  Judaism.  Though 
bodily  he  lived  in  the  midst  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
in  spirit  he  was  a  relic  of  a  previous  age  ;  he  was  utterly 
unable  to  grasp  the  modern  idea  of  Judaism  ;  he  was 
unable  to  think  of  the  Jew  as  merely  a  member  of  a  re- 
ligious sect,  but  looked  upon  him  as  upon  a  member  of 
a  race  whose  duty  it  was  to  preserve  carefully  all  those 
distinctive  marks  which  would  separate  him  from  the  rest 
of  the  world.  He  still  dreamed  of  the  realization  of  Mes- 
sianic hopes  in  some  shape  or  manner,  and  it  was  only 
with  him  that  these  vain  hopes,  which  had  caused  so 
much  harm  to  Judaism,  finally  died  away. 

Both  the  orthodox  and  the  reformers  have  eulogized 
Sir  Moses.  I  can  understand  why  the  orthodox  wing- 
bewails  his  loss;  but  if  reformers  offer  an  acknowledg- 
ment to  his  memory,  it  ought  to  be  done  with  some  reser- 
vation. They  may  praise  the  purity  of  his  morals,  the 
unselfishness  of  his  motives,  they  may  laud  his  liberality 
and  extol  his  magnanimity,  they  may  admire  his  zeal  and 
enthusiasm  for  the  cause  which  he  had  espoused,  but  they 
should  not  forget  that  his  sympathies  were  never  with 
them  nor  with  progressive  Judaism.  Good  and  noble  a 
man  as  he  was,  he  was  rather  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
reform ;  he  rather  impeded  than  assisted  its  work. 

While  reform  Judaism  was  still  strugfo-linof  for  existence 
in  Europe,  a  new  country,  situated  upon  a  new  continent, 
began  to  make  its  influence  felt  in  the  world.  The 
United  States  of  America  liad   declared  and  won    their 


294  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

independence.  They  were  nu  longer  a  colonial  appen- 
dage of  England.  They  bad  formed  a  republic  upon  tbe 
broadest  basis  of  liberty,  and  had  invited  the  oppressed  of 
all  nations  to  take  shelter  under  the  wings  of  the  Ameri- 
can eagle.  Extending  over  a  vast  area  of  land,  the 
United  States  could  grant  opportunities  to  the  settler 
such  as  no  other  country  in  the  world  could,  and  they 
began  to  rise  into  prominence.  It  could  not  fail  that  also 
Jews  should  immigrate  into  this  new  country,  especially 
after  the  invention  of  steam-vessels  had  made  transatlantic 
travel  less  dangerous  and  expensive.  The  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  had  cut  in  twain  the  bonds  by  which 
religion  was  fastened  to  the  State,  or,  rather,  the  State  to 
religion,  and  had  left  it  to  the  option  of  every  citizen  to 
join  with  whomsoever  he  pleased  for  the  purpose  of  work- 
ing out  the  salvation  of  his  soul.  It  refused  to  interfere 
in  all  matters  of  religion.  Such  favorable  conditions 
offered  Judaism  all  the  opportunities  for  development ; 
never  in  all  its  histor}^  had  it  enjoyed  better  ones,  and  it 
hastened  to  avail  itself  of  them.  The  history  of  Ameri- 
can Judaism  is  yet  a  very  brief  one,  owing  to  its  recent 
origin  ;  but  it  is  as  eventful  as  it  is  important  to  us.  The 
struggle  between  the  old  and  new  ideas,  between  ortho- 
doxy and  reform,  were  settled  here  more  quickly  and 
more  decisively  than  in  the  old  country.  The  battle- 
ground being  equally  divided  between  the  two  contes- 
tants, the  younger  and  stronger  of  them  gained  an  easy 
victory.  In  the  land  of  religious  liberty  it  could  hot  fail 
that  the  reformers  should  leave  their  European  friends  far 
behind  them.  Short  as  it  may  be,  Jewish  reform  in 
America  has  a  history  of  its  own,  and,  though  we  are 
yet  standing  right  in  the  midst  of  the  smoke  and  din  of  the 
battle,  and  although  shot  and  shell  are  yet  flying  around 


MOSES    MONTEFIOKE    AND    HIS    TIME  295 

US,  we  may  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  past  which  has  scarcely 
ceased  to  be  present,  and  of  a  future  which  looms  up  to 
replace  it.  A  man  still  living  among  us,  still  in  full 
activity  and  well  known  to  you,  both  personally  and  by 
the  numerous  products  of  his  indefatigable  pen,  shall  fill 
the  central  part  of  my  next  sketch.  I  refer  to  Rabbi 
Isaac  M.  Wise. 


XXIII. 

RABBI   ISAAC   M.   WISE   AND   HIS   TIME 

Solon,  the  famous  law-giver  of  the  ancient  Athenian 
republic,  was  visiting  the  court  of  Croesus,  the  King  of 
Lydia.  The  latter  was  as  renowned  at  his  time  for  the 
wealth  which  he  had  amassed  as  the  former  was  cele- 
brated b}''  his  contemporaries  for  the  profundity  of  his 
wisdom.  Greek  poets  tell  complacently  of  a  conversa- 
tion which  ensued  between  these  two  extraordinary  men, 
and,  if  the  account  which  they  give  of  it  is  not  exactly 
historically  true,  the  moral  intended  by  it  reflects,  at 
least,  great  credit  upon  the  inventors.  The  king,  they 
say,  while  exhibiting  before  his  guest  the  vastness  and 
inexhaustibility  of  his  resources,  gave  way  to  a  feeling  of 
vanity,  and  asked  the  philosopher  to  name  to  him  the 
happiest  man  with  whom  he  had  ever  come  in  contact. 
If  Solon  had  been  as  courteous  as  he  was  wise,  he  would 
have  found  some  polite  rejoinder  from  which  the  vain 
king  might  have  concluded  that  his  guest  admired  him  as 
the  happiest  of  mortals  ;  but  Solon  would  not,  nor  could 
he  withhold  the  truth,  even  if  he  was  sure  to  displease 
the  king  by  his  answer.  He  named  a  common  Athenian, 
citizen,  who,  after  having  lived  to  a  good  old  age,  and 
after  having  seen  his  sons  winners  of  prizes  at  Olympian 
games,  had  died  for  his  country  on  the  battle-field. 
Pressed  a  second  time  by  the  king  to  name  the  man  to 
whom  he  would  accord  the  second  place,  the  incorrigible 

290 


RABBI    ISAAC    M.    WISE    AND    HIS    TIMB  297 

Solon  thought  that  two  )'oung  men  should  share  that 
honor,  because  they  had  died  in  the  performance  of  an  act 
of  filial  devotion  to  their  aged  mother.  Cornered,  finally, 
by  the  king's  direct  question  whether  he  (Croesus)  was 
not  to  be  considered  a  happy  man,  Solon  explained  that, 
not  knowing  what  the  next  day  might  bring,  no  man 
could  be  called  happy  before  death  had  removed  him  for- 
ever from  the  stage,  and  thus  suppressed  for  good  all 
arising  emergencies.  The  king,  according  to  the  report 
of  the  Greek  scribe,  could  not  be  convinced  that  Solon's 
maxim  was  a  good  one,  until  his  own  fortune  was  sud- 
denly changed,  and  he  was  hurled  from  the  height  of  his 
imagined  happiness  into  the  most  pitiable  state  of  misery. 
It  seems  to  me  that  for  similar  reasons  we  hesitate  to 
pass  judgment  upon  any  person  who  is  yet  living  among 
us.  We  fear  that  some  unforeseen  and  unexpected  action 
on  his  part  might  give  the  lie  to  our  asseveration.  To-day 
we  may  find  a  man  worthy  of  our  praise,  and  may  set 
him  up  as  an  example  for  emulation,  but,  for  all  we 
know,  the  very  next  day  he  might  compromise  himself 
and  us  by  some  hasty  and  injudicious,  if  not  criminal 
action  ;  or,  we  may  feel  justified  to  condemn  a  man's 
actions  to-day,  and  to-morrow  affairs  may  take  such  a  turn 
that  the  very  action  which  we  have  assailed  yesterday  is 
glorified  to-day  by  the  public,  on  account  of  the  success 
which  has  unexpectedly  followed  it.  In  either  case,  our 
judgment  of  men  and  things  will  be  exposed  as  unreliable, 
and  we  are  likely  to  experience  an  unpleasant  and  severe 
set-back.  History  is,  therefore,  rarely  written  by  the 
generation  which  witnesses  the  events.  As  a  rule,  we 
await  the  demise  of  a  man  before  we  feel  safe  to  pass 
judgment  upon  him.  And  still,  "if  not  now,  at  what 
other  time?"   says  the  \vise  Hillel.     If  we,  who  see  with 


298  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

our  own  eyes  and  hear  witli  our  own  ears,  shall  not  be 
competent  judges  of  what  is  going  on  around  us,  who  will 
be  better  qualified  ?  If  a  man's  labors  for  the  welfare  of 
the  community  are  not  to  be  appreciated  during  his 
life-time,  when  will  he  be  entitled  to  the  fruits  of  his 
work?  There  is  not  a  man  living  who  would  not  gladlj- 
exchange  some  centuries  of  future  glory  for  an  hour  of 
present  appreciation.  We  cling  to  the  hope  that  our 
labors  will  receive  their  due  acknowledgment  after  our 
demise,  merely  because  we  receive  so  little  encourage- 
ment while  we  are  living  ;  and  if  only  those  of  our  deeds 
which  are  deserving  of  credit  would  receive  what  is  due 
to  them,  I  think  none  would  feel  offended  when  opinions 
of  his  are  criticised  because  they  differ  with  those  held  by 
others. 

We  have  arrived  in  our  researches  at  a  stage  in  the 
development  of  Judaism  which  to  us  must  be  not  only  of 
greater  interest  but  of  higher  importance  than  any  of  the 
previous  ones.  The  history  of  American  Judaism,  short 
as  it  is,  is  full  of  momentous  events,  and  if  we  are  to  ac- 
count for  the  difference  of  the  religious  views  which  we 
hold  to-day  from  those  held  by  past  generations,  or  if  we 
are  to  be  held  responsible  for  the  modifications  and  alter- 
ations to  which  we  have  subjected,  and  perhaps  yet  shall 
subject  both  the  forms  and  principles  of  our  religion,  we 
ought  to  become  as  familiar  with  it  as  with  the  events  of 
which  the  oldest  of  our  religious  text-books  —  the  Bible 
—  tells  us. 

It  is  evidently  impossible  to  speak  of  occurrences  with- 
out speaking  of  the  persons  who  either  were  instru- 
mental in  bringing  them  about  or  who  were  affected  by 
them ;  and  whereas  some  of  the  men  are  yet  living  who 
have  identified  themselves  with   American  Judaism,  no 


RABBI    ISAAC    M.    WISE    AND    HIS    TIME  299 

choice  is  left  to  us  but  to  speak  of  them  as  if  they 
did  not  exist  at  all,  to  discuss  tiieir  deeds  and  the  mo- 
tives of  their  deeds  as  if  they  were  long  dead  and  buried, 
and  to  approve  of  what  we  deem  worthy  of  our  approval, 
as  if  they  were  not  more  susceptible  to  flattery  than  are 
the  corpses  of  men  whom  we  eulogize,  or  to  criticise  their 
works  as  if  they  were  not  able  to  retort. .  We  must,  how- 
ever, never  allow  our  personal  preferences,  tastes,  preju- 
dices, or  dislikes  to  bias  our  judgment,  and  when,  for 
example,  we  shall  discourse  upon  the  influence  of  Rabbi 
Isaac  M.  Wise  of  Cincinnati,  upon  the  formation  of  what 
we  call  American  Judaism,  we  must  not  see  in  him  the 
orator  who  a  few  3^ears  ago  stood  in  this  very  pulpit  to 
dedicate  this  temple,  and  whose  sermon  may  or  may  not 
have  pleased  one  or  the  other  of  us  ;  or  the  editor  of  a 
Jewish  newspaper  whose  editorials  may  not  suit  some- 
body's taste ;  and,  least  of  all,  the  literary  opponent  of 
some  rabbi  who  had  the  good-fortune  to  hail  from  the 
same  province  of  the  father-land  from  which  we  came, 
while  he  (Wise)  had  the  ill-luck  to  have  been  born  in 
some  other  province  of  the  German  empire  ;  we  must 
judge  him  by  what  he  has  actually  accomplished,  as  well 
as  by  the  ideals  after  which  he  has  been  striving. 

How  soon,  after  the  discovery  of  this  continent,  Jews 
settled  upon  American  soil  is  now  a  matter  of  conject- 
ure. It  is  more  than  probable  that  occasionall}''  an  ad- 
venturous Israelite  may  have  been  blown  to  these  shores. 
The  earliest  Jewish  settlers  were  naturally  of  Spanish, 
Hollandish,  and  afterwards  of  English  descent.  But 
whether  these  early  immigrants  renounced  their  religion 
in  the  new  countiy,  or  whether  they  adhered  to  it  in  spite 
of  the  conditions  which  made  it  difficult,  if  not  impossible, 
to  live  up  to  the  prescribed  ceremonies,  cannot  be  ascer- 


300  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

tained.  The  fact  remains  that  no  traces  whatsoever  of  a 
former  congregational  life  are  to  be  found.  The  haze  be- 
gins to  lift  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  after  the 
United  States  had  won  their  independence  and  had  offered 
this  country  as  an  asylum  to  the  oppressed  of  all  nations. 
At  that  time  we  may  discern  the  first  germs  of  a  congre- 
gational life  springing  up  among  the  Jews  of  America. 
Whenever  ten  Israelites  would  find  themselves  in  one 
place,  they  would  form  a  congregation  for  the  purpose, 
first,  of  securing  a  burial-place  ;  second,  of  emplojdng  a 
man  who  would  kill  their  cattle  and  fowl  after  the  pre- 
scribed rules,  and  circumcise  their  boys  ;  and  third,  of 
celebrating  Sabbath  and  holidays  in  common. 

These  settlers  represented  by  no  means  the  intelligent 
classes  of  the  European  brotherhood,  but  what  they  may 
have  lacked  in  scholarship  they  amply  made  up  bj^  enter- 
prise and  daring.  They  troubled  themselves  little  about 
religion  as  such  ;  in  fact,  their  love  of  religion  must  have 
been  rather  questionable  at  home,  or  they  never  would, 
have  ventured  themselves  upon  the  sea  and  into  lands 
where  the  probabilities  were  that  they  would  not  be  able 
to  conform  to  any  of  the  requisite  religious  practices. 
Their  flocking  together  was  caused  more  by  fancy  than  by 
actual  religious  cravings,  and  it  occurred  only  after  they 
had  gained  material  prosperity,  and  found  themselves 
in  such  comfortable  circumstances  that  they  could  afford 
to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  congregational  intercourse.  In 
hours  of  leisure,  the  remembrances  of  their  younger  days, 
were  stirred,  and  it  was  not  more  than  natural  that  they 
wished  to  celebrate  festivals  and  to  2:)erform  religious 
ceremonies  exactly  in  the  same  style  as  they  had  seen 
them  observed  in  days  gone  by,  at  home,  by  their 
parents.     Those  who  came  from  the  same  part  of  the  old 


RABBI   ISAAC   M.    WISE   AND    HIS   TIME  301 

country,  following  the  laws  of  affinity,  would,  thereftn-e, 
establish  congregations  in  the  new  country  after  the  pat- 
tern of  those  which  they  had  left  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  These  English,  S|;)anish,  Hollandish,  and  after- 
wards German,  Polish,  and  Russian  colonies  became  in 
course  of  time  the  magnetic  centres  for  further  immigra- 
tion. Either  a  relative  was  sent  for  and  was  received  on 
his  arrival  by  his  friends,  or  the  new-comer,  after  having 
made  himself  known  as  a  Jew,  was  directed  by  any  of  his 
coreligionists  to  his  countrymen.  Thus  the  various  con- 
gregations were  formed  merely  for  the  sake  of  convenience 
and  not  under  the  pressure  of  a  strong  religious  senti- 
ment. The  members  would  therefore  not  give  up  any  of 
the  religious  practices  to  which  they  had  been  accustomed, 
and,  instead  of  joining  the  next  congregation  and  forming 
with  it  one  sizable  body,  they  instead  remained  iso- 
lated, without  force  for  good  or  evil.  Leaders  there  were 
none.  Only  in  large  i)laces,  where  the  same  national  ma- 
terial could  be  collected  into  larger  congregations,  could 
a  rabbi  find  a  scanty  living,  and  unless  he  conformed 
strictly  to  the  wishes  of  his  constituency  his  position  was 
not  assured.  This  state  of  aftairs  was  somewhat  improved 
when  an  infusion  of  new  blood  took  place,  when  German 
Israelites  began  to  flock  to  this  country  in  order  to  seek 
and  find  in  America  that  liberty  which  they  lacked 
at  home.  A  younger  and  more  intelligent  element  en- 
tered now  upon  the  stage,  yearning  to  adapt  their  religion 
to  the  demands  of  the  day.  At  home,  the  government 
and  other  social  conditions  had  impeded  their  way,  but 
who  would  hinder  them  from  doing  as  they  pleased  in  the 
land  of  the  free  ?  Timidly  they  began  to  bring  order 
into  tlie  chaos,  and  to  introduce  what  then  was  called  re- 
form.     So   timid    were    their  first   steps   that   they    were 


302  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

almost  scared  at  their  very  sound,  and  frightened  on  ac- 
count of  their  own  audacity.  They  thought  the  sky 
would  fall  upon  them  if  one  of  the  regular  prayers  should 
be  omitted  or  substituted  by  a  prayer  in  the  vernacular. 
But  the  heavens  did  not  change  their  position,  and  not 
even  the  government  interfered  when,  in  Charleston,  S. 
C,  an  English  hymn  was  chanted  for  the  first  time  in  a 
Jewish  sj'nagogue.  Some  grumblers  would,  of  course, 
secede;  but  what  of  it,  as  long  as  the  remaining  members 
were  enthusiastic  enough  to  contribute  the  more  liberally 
for  the  support  of  their  congregation?  This  happened  in 
or  about  the  year  1830,  and,  no  earthquake  having  oc- 
curred on  account  of  the  innovation,  congregations  in 
Baltimore  and  New  York  mustered  up  all  their  courage 
and  followed  suit.  As  I  said  before,  it  was  the  German 
contingent  that  was  pushing  forward,  and. the  leaders  of 
the  reform  movement  were  mostly  of  German  descent. 
A  few  men  arrived  in  America  about  that  time  who  had 
received  a  rabbinical  training  in  the  old  country,  but,  be- 
ing too  far  advanced  in  their  views  to  desire  a'position  in 
German  congregations,  they  sought  a  field  of  activity  in 
a  country  in  which  the  government  had  no  voice  in  mat- 
ters pertaining  to  religion.  Among  them  were  Drs. 
David  Einhorn  and  Isaac  M.  Wise.  Both  men  have  done 
yeoman  service  in  the  cause  of  reform,  though  they  have 
never  worked  in  harmony  with  each  other.  A  certain 
animosity  seems  to  have  existed  between  them,  and  it  is 
to  be  regretted  that  even  to-day,  so  many  years  after  the . 
demise  of  Dr.  Einhorn,  the  flame  of  the  same  dissension 
is  still  fanned  as  if  it  were  a  sacred  family  duty  to  keep 
it  alive.  Botli  men  cannot  serve  as  measures  for  each 
other  ;  Dr.  Einhorn  may  have  been  the  greater  scholar, 
he    may    have    been    the    greater    orator,    he    may    have 


RABBI    ISAAC    M.    WISE    AXD    HTS    TIME  803 

possessed  a  greater  force  of  persuasion,  his  arguments 
may  have  been  profounder  and  more  convincing  ;  hut  he 
lacked  the  universality  of  his  colaborer,  Dr.  Wise.  If 
fate  had  made  them  business  men  instead  of  leaders  in 
religious  thought,  the  one  would  have  been  successful  as 
the  manager  of  a  retail  establishment,  the  other  would 
have  been  valuable  in  the  wholesale  department.  Ein- 
horn  has  served  exclusively  only  the  congregations  which 
happened  to  employ  him,  or,  if  we  shall  allow  him  a  larger 
sphere,  he  has  devoted  his  entire  energy  to  the  elevation 
of  the  American  Israelites  of  German  extraction.  Isaac 
M.  Wise  has  served  American  Judaism  in  its  totality,  and 
lias  identified  himself  with  what  we  may  call  "  young 
America,"  that  is,  with  that  portion  of  the  Jewish  popu- 
lation which,  born  upon  American  soil  and  trained  in 
American  sclxools,  has  learned  to  value  the  greatness  of 
American  institutions  far  better  than  their  foreign-bred 
parents.  Einhorn  spoke  the  language  of  the  father  and 
expressed  his  sentiments ;  Wise  stirred  the  heart  of  the 
son,  Avhose •language  he  had  learned  to  speak  fluently,  and 
this  was  perhaps  the  reason  both  men  could  not  agree. 

Excepting  a  few  articles  which  appeared  in  a  Jewish 
weekly,  either  under  or  over  his  signature,  a  prayer-book, 
which  (for  want  of  a  better  one)  our  congregation  has 
adopted  for  our  worship,  a  text-book  for  Sabbath-schools, 
and  a  selection  of  sermons,  all  of  which  were  written  in 
the  German  idiom,  no  literary  work  of  importance  will 
betray  to  the  historian  of  the  future  that  David  Einhorn 
ever  existed,  or  helped  to  press  American  Judaism  into 
new  moulds. 

In  1846,  Isaac  jNI.  Wise  landecf  in  America.  He  found 
American  Judaism,  as  I  described  it,  a  chaos.  He  found 
congregations  without  leaders,  formed  after  the  most  irra- 


304  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

tional  and  pernicious  principle  of  nationality  ;  but  he 
saw  also  the  land,  and  he  saw  that  it  was  a  Land  "  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey."  He  studied  its  laws  and  found 
that  they  were  the  most  liberal  under  which  Israelites 
had  ever  lived.  He  adopted  America  at  once  as  his 
country,  and  bestowed  upon  it  all  the  love  which  a  man 
can  bestow  upon  the  land  of  his  nativity.  He  saw  in  it 
the  promised  land  of  which  Israel  had  dreamed  for  so  many 
centuries.  If  Canaan  was  to  be  found  anywhere,  it  was 
to  be  found  here ;  if  Judaism  had  ever  been  destined  to 
live,  to  grow,  and  to  win  for  itself  a  respected  position 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  here  was  the  place  where 
these  hopes  could  be  realized. 

The  difficulties  which  he  encountered  while  serving  a 
congregation  of  the  old  style  in  Albany  are  now  pleasant 
recollections  to  him  and  to  those  survivors  who  witnessed 
the  rupture ;  but  they  are  too  inconsequential  to  be 
entered  into  the  book  of  general  history.  If  we  wish  to 
understand  his  work,  we  must  examine  his  ideals  ;  then 
only  shall  we  be  able  to  judge  whether  he  adopted  the 
right  means,  whether  he  accomplished  what  he  desired, 
and  whether  and  wherein  he  failed.  Three  ideals  must 
have  risen  before  his  vision  a  very  short  time  after  his 
arrival,  because  the  unprejudiced  eye  sees  him  constantly 
reaching  after  them,  no  matter  how  often  ill-success  would 
push  him  back. 

His  first  ideal  seems  to  have  been  that  all  national  dis- 
tinctions among  the  Jews  of  America  should  be  abolished. 
If  healthier  conditions  should  be  established,  they  must 
cease  to  be  German,  Polish,  Russian,  or  English  Jews ; 
they  must  cease  to  be  split  into  as  many  congregations, 
they  must  become  "American  Israelites;"  they  must  be- 
come citizens  of  this  republic  in   the  widest  sense  of  the 


RABBI    ISAAC    M.    WISE    AND    HIS   TIME  305 

word.  One  common  ritual  would  then  suffice  for  all  of 
them,  a  ritual  which  should  correspond  with  the  demands 
of  the  time. 

Second  :  this  uniform  religious  body  should  be  governed 
not  by  a  pope,  not  by  one  or  several  rabbles,  and  surely 
not  by  the  rabbinical  authorities  of  Europe ;  it  should  be 
ruled  by  a  synod,  in  which  every  congregation  should  be 
as  well  represented  as  the  suiallest  State  in  the  Union  was 
in  Congress.  This  synod  should  decide  in  all  matters  of 
religion,  and,  being  the  expression  of  the  popular  will,  it 
should  have  binding  force. 

Third:  the  leaders  of  American  Judaism  should  be 
Americans  and  not  foreigners,  who,  with  all  due  respect 
to  their  superior  scholarship,  proved  to  be  utterly  unable 
in  many  cases  to  grasp  the  spirit  of  American  institutions. 
Their  importation  from  Europe  should  be  discontinued, 
and  means  should  be  adopted  to  train  young  men  for  such 
offices  upon  American  soil. 

Far  in  the  rear  a  fourth  vision  even  might  have  risen 
befoi-e  him.  He  would  see  the  fertile  plains  of  the  West 
dotted  with  Jewish  farms  and  villages.  He  would  discern 
whole  States  springing  up  under  the  tillage  of  Jewish 
hands.  Tliey  would  be  controlled  by  Jewish  legislation, 
represented  by  Jewish  congressmen  in  the  national  gov- 
ernment, and  they  would  show  to  the  world  tliat  the  Jew 
could  adapt  himself  to  any  kind  of  work  and  would  cease 
to  be  the  invariable  trader,  if  an  opportunity  were  given 
him. 

Let  us  now  examine  these  ideals  and  see  how  far 
they  have  materialized.  Can  there  be  anything  more 
absurd  than  a  subdivision  of  a  religious  community  into 
national  groups?  What  in  the  world  has  the  part  of  the 
country  where   a  man    is  boin    to  do  with   his  religious 


306  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

opinions  ?  One  can  easily  understand  that  congregations 
might  form  on  the  basis  of  a  difference  of  opinion  in  re- 
gard to  religious  tenets,  that  those  who  hold  the  same 
religious  views  should  flock  together  in  order  to  accom" 
plish  more  by  a  union ;  but  why  should  animosity  and 
prejudice  split  the  camps  of  both  the  orthodox  and  the 
reformers  into  innumerable  small  congregations  on  the 
ground  of  a  provincial  extraction,  which,  in  the  new  coun- 
try and  under  a  new  order  of  things,  had  no  meaning 
whatsoever.  Dr.  Wise  worked  with  all  his  might,  and 
during  his  whole  life,  to  break  down  this  absurd  race- 
prejudice,  to  refute  what  hardly  needed  refutation.  He 
insisted  that  the  English  language,  being  the  language  of 
the  land,  should  be  the  language  of  the  synagogue,  that 
the  Israelites  should  learn  to  look  upon  themselves  as 
members  of  a  large  body  of  as  large  a  country  as  America. 
He  would  have  liked  to  unite  them  under  one  ritual  and 
to  give  into  the  hands  of  the  devout  worshipper  a  prayer- 
book  which  he  would  find  serviceable  in  the  smallest 
Jewish  congregation  of  Maine  as  well  as  in  the  largest  of 
California.  The  prayers  contained  therein  should  express 
gratitude  to  God  for  the  large,  prosperous,  and  free  coun- 
try which  he  has  given  to  us,  and  should  cease  to  whine 
for  a  restoration  of  Israel  upon  Asiatic  ground ;  a  wish 
which,  in  fact,  nobody  harbored  and  nobody  would  help 
to  realize,  but,  notwithstanding  which,  still  fills  the  pages 
of  the  different  Polish,  German,  and  Sefardish  prayer- 
books. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  and  his  most  inveterate  enemies 
must  concede,  that  he  has  been  instrumental,  if  not  in 
removing  entirely,  at  least  in  softening  and  weakening 
these  provincial  prejudices.  Young  America,  in  whom 
he  placed  his  trust,  has  already  done  away  with   that 


RABBI    ISAAC   M.    WISE   AND   HIS   TIME  307 

prejudice,  and  if  the  daily  influx  of  new-comers  had  not 
constantly  reenforced  the  old  guards  and  kept  the  old 
flame  ablaze,  his  success  might  have  been  a  signal  one. 
The  prayer-book  which  he  wished  to  establish  as  the 
prayer-book  of  the  American  Israelites  Mas  as  much  a 
failure  as  were  the  attempts  of  others  to  produce  suitable 
guides  to  devotion.  He  was  under  obligation  to  com- 
promise. He  and  his  colaboreis  had  to  allow  this  passage 
and  that  to  remain.  The  old  material  impeded  their  way  ; 
and  no  matter  whom  and  how  nnuiy  they  tried  to  please, 
there  always  remained  a  multitude  whom  they  naturally 
must  offend.  His  "  Minhag  America  '"  has  not  3-et  become 
the  acknowledged  prayer-book  of  American  Israelites  ;  but 
I  doubt  whether  to-day  he  himself  would  wish  that  it  be 
established  as  such,  in  the  form  in  which  it  was  edited  so 
manj''  years  ago.  But  this  much  can  be  said,  and  ought 
to  be  said  for  it,  that,  no  matter  what  fault  his  02)ponents 
have  found  with  it,  no  one  has  yet  produced  a  better  one 
or  one  that  would  give  greater  satisfaction. 

With  the  abandonment  of  the  Messianic  expectations, 
with  the  substitution  of  these  antiquated  hopes  by  the 
modern  idea  that  it  was  the  mission  of  Judaism  to  help, 
in  union  with  other  creeds,  to  raise  man  to  a  still  higher 
plane  of  civilization,  and  with  the  full  reintroduction  of 
the  Israelite  into  society,  it  became  absolutely  necessary 
to  remove  all  those  laws  and  prescriptions  which,  had 
made  him  a  stranger  in  the  world.  It  was  not  sufficient 
that  public  worship  should  be  conducted  more  orderly 
and  respectably,  and  more  in  conformit}'  with  the  general 
tastes  of  the  time,  than  it  was  heretofore  ;  a  number  of 
other  laws  had  to  be  abolished.  The  table  laws  had  be- 
come utterly  untenable  ;  they  had  fallen  practically  into 
disuse,  and   it  was  high   time  that   the  religion  of   a  man 


308  ^  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

should  not  be  measured  by  what  he  ate  or  refused  to  eat, 
but  by  his  attitude  as  a  man  and  as  a  citizen.  It  was  high 
time  that  the  seat  of  religion  should  be  removed  from  the 
stomach  to  the  heart.  It  was  comparatively  easy  to  sliove 
aside  the  authority  of  the  Talmud.  The  modern  rabbi 
could  claim  to  have  the  same  right  to  decree  new  laws 
or  to  abolish  superannuated  ones  as  had  his  predecessors, 
but  there  were  laws*\vhich  had  become  impracticable,  al- 
though the}^  were  prescribed  by  the  highest  religious 
authority  —  tlie  Bible.  Modern  researches  and  modern 
criticism  had  at  the  same  time  undermined  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Bible.  The  wrangle  was  no  longer  whether 
God  himself  had,  directly  or  by  inspiration,  produced  that 
work ;  the  divine  authorship  was  denied  in  toto.  The 
question  was  now  who  might  have  been  the  author  or 
the  authors  of  the  different  books ;  whether  they  were  in 
possession  of  the  original  documents,  or  whether  revisers 
had  modified  and  changed  the  original  text  to  suit  their 
times,  and  whether,  finally,  the  knowledge  of  the  biblical 
authors  was  superior  to  ours.  Miracles  were  discredited, 
and  the  truth-seeker  had  begun  to  ask  himself  how  truth 
could  be  sifted  from  fiction,  even  in  a  book  which  com- 
manded so  liigh  a  veneration.  Under  such  conditions,  it 
was  rather  a  difficult  task  to  find  and  establish  an  author- 
ity to  whom  so  large  a  body  as  was  American  Judaism 
should  reverently  bow.  It  was,  and  still  is,  the  unsolved 
question  of  the  day,  by  what  authority  is  one  law  abol- 
ished while  another  is  upheld,  or  by  what  authority  any 
religious  obligation  can  be  imposed  upon  a  member  of  the 
community.  Modern  Jewish  theology  had  been  driven 
back  in  search  for  that  authority  to  the  Sinaitic  revela- 
tion ;  but  this  chapter  of  the  Bible  needed,  in  a  time  of 
skepticism  and  disbelief,  as  much  the  support  of  indispu- 


RABBI    ISAAC    M.    \yiSE    AND    HIS   TIME  809 

table  evidence  as  did  the  most  insignificant  of  the  ordi- 
nances contained  in  the  Bible. 

Isaac  M.  Wise,  seeking  for  that  authorit}',  thought  that 
he  might  find  it  in  the  voice  of  the  people.  "  Vox  populi 
vox  Dei "  — "  the  people's  voice  was  to  be  the  voice  of 
God."  A  synod  composed  either  of  theologians,  laymen, 
or  a  mixture  of  both,  should  supply  that  want.  He  be- 
came, therefore,  the  zealous  advoca^  of  such  an  institu- 
tion. Every  attempt,  however,  to  realize  the  measure 
failed.  Only  a  few  rabbles  could  be  brought  together  at 
a  time.  They  as  little  agreed  among  themselves  as.  they 
represented  the  true  sentiment  of  their  congregations. 
When,  after  protracted  debates,  they  compromised  upon  a 
certain  platform,  their  decisions  remained  ineffective,  and 
were  ridiculed  and  discarded  not  only  by  the  rest  of  their 
colleagues,  but  by  the  members  of  their  own  congrega- 
tions. All  these  synods  and  conferences,  composed  by 
theologians,  have  thus  far  been  utter  failures.  Their 
value  was  merel}^  negative ;  their  platforms  merely 
gauged  the  general  sentiment  of  the  time,  but  they 
lacked  that  very  authority  which  they  were  seeking, 
and  of  which  they  were  so  badly  in  need.  Having  met 
with  frequent  rebuffs,  Dr.  Wise,  almost  single-handed, 
formed  a  union  of  American  congregations,  and  deluded 
himself  with  the  hopes  that  in  course  of  time  the  con- 
ventions held  by  their  representatives  would  rise  to  the 
emergency  and  would  establish  an  authority.  His  hopes 
again  fell  short  of  realization.  The  union  of  American 
congregations  is  held  together  by  the  strong  grip  of  its 
founder ;  perhaps  also  by  the  institution  which  it  is  now 
in  honor  bound  to  uphold.  Not  all  congregations  Tiave 
yet  joined  in  the  work.  Some  stayed  away  from  it  on  ae- 
count  of  their  antagonism  to  Dr.  Wise ;  others  on  account 


310  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

of  indifference  and  stolidity.  Those  who  do  form  the 
union  keep  timidly  away  from  the  discussion  of  religious 
topics  and  are  satisfied  to  audit  and  foot  the  bills  incurred 
by  the  Hebrew  Union  College.  Whether,  after  all,  an 
authority  is  actually  needed  to  guide  our  religious  life, 
and  whether  it  ought  not  to  be  sought  for  in  other  quar- 
ters, are  still  questions  awaiting  solution.  As  long  as 
such  an  authority  is  not  found,  each  congregation  must 
work  out  its  own  salvation,  and  must  claim  as  inalienable 
the  right  to  legislate  for  itself. 

Although  Dr.  Wise  did  not  meet  with  so  signal  a 
success  in  these  two  directions  as  he  has  wished,  and  as 
his  indefatigable  efforts  would  have  merited,  his  third 
ideal,  at  least,  materialized.  The  Hebrew  Union  College 
stands  firmly  established  like  a  rock,  and  is  becoming 
more  and  more  the  glory  of  American  Judaism.  About 
a  dozen  young  American-bred  Israelites  have  received 
their  training  therein,  and  in  their  few  years  of  official 
activity  they,  have  given  proof  that  Dr.  Wise  was  right, 
and  that  the  men  who  are  to  reconstruct  American  Juda- 
ism must  be  natives  of  this  country.  Let  the  adversaries  of 
Dr.  Wise  bring  forth  their  severest  denunciaticjns  against 
his  prophecy,  against  his  ideals,  and  against  the  mode  in 
which  he  endeavored  to  realize  his  hopes ;  tliey  all  burst 
like  soap-bubbles  on  the  rock  of  the  one  fact,  that  the 
Union  College  exists,  notwithstanding  their  enmit\^  or  in- 
difference, that  it  has  produced  leaders  who  indeed  lead, 
and  who  are  cherished  and  well  paid  by  their  congre- 
gations. 

His  fourth  and  rather  indistinct  vision,  the  colonization 
of  Jews  in  the  West,  has  been  a  fata  morgana^  a  mere 
play  of  his  fancy,  which  is  excusable  in  a  man  whose  soul 
was  always  aglow  with  the  fire  of  enthusiasm  for  Israel's 


RABBI    ISAAC    M.    WISE    AND    HIS    TIME  311 

prosperity.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  having 
said  that  all  the  changes  which  American  Judaism  has 
undergone  in  the  last  twenty-live  years  are  due  solely  to 
Dr,  Wise,  that  he  is  to  be  credited  with  all  and  every- 
thing good  that  was  done,  or  that  he  is  to  be  held  respon- 
sible for  every  mistake.  Far  from  it.  1  do  not  under- 
value the  work  done  by  the  many  rabbles  who,  coming 
from  the  old  country,  met  and  overcame  more  obstacles 
than  their  young  American-bred  colleagues  will  have  to 
surmount,  and  who,  notwithstanding  all  these  drawbacks, 
have  accomplished  a  good  deal,  and  have  contributed,  vol- 
untarily or  involuntarily,  to  the  success  which  Dr.  Wise's 
friends  claim  for  him  ;  but  I  do  say  that  in  the  midst  of 
strife  his  voice  was  heard  the  loudest,  that  his  trumpet 
rang  out  in  clearer  tones  the  key-note,  and  that  he  was  to 
be  found  where  the  fight  raged  the  hottest.  That  he 
established  a  weekly  paper,  The  American  Israelite,  which, 
whatever  its  shortcomings  may  be,  is  considered  by  all  as 
the  organ  of  American  Judaism ;  that  he  has  published 
mnumerable  works,  of  greater  or  minor  merit ;  that  his 
voice  has  been  heard  in  almost  every  city  of  importance 
throughout  the  United  States, —  is  so  well  known  that  I 
need  not  mention  it. 

There  is  one  more  change  which  he  has  brought  about, 
and  which  we  ought  not  to  overlook.  In  one  of  my 
former  lectures  I  stated  that  when  the  reform  movement 
began  in  Germany,  one  of  the  first  innovations  was  the 
introduction  of  the  sermon  as  the  most  important  part 
of  a  religious  service.  The  first  reformers,  being  led 
by  a  desire  to  place  their  constituents  upon  the  same 
level  with  their  fellow-citizens,  imitated  their  Christian 
colleagues  and  began  to  sermonize.  A  text  from  the  Bible 
was  chosen,  interpreted  after  improved  methods,  and  the 


■312  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

speaker  presumed  that  while  occupying  the  pulpit  he 
stood  nearer  to  the  Godhead  and  knew  better  what  the 
divine  author  intended  to  say  in  an  ambiguous  passage 
than  any  of  his  listeners.  They  even  adopted  the  solemn 
ways  of  their  prototy^jes,  they  dressed  like  them  in  long, 
flowing  robes,  they  had  their  hair  trimmed  after  their  fash- 
ion, they  would  turn  their  eyes  heavenwards,  and  would 
drawl  their  words  exactly  as  they  did.  All  this  was 
utterly  un-Jewish.  The  Jewish  rabbi  has  never  been  the 
steward  of  God  on  earth ;  his  office  was  simply  that  of  a 
teacher.  The  platform,  and  not  the  pulpit,  belonged  to 
the  outfit  of  a  Jewish  synagogue ;  and  the  lecture,  and 
not  the  sermon,  is  essential  to  Judaism.  It  could  not  fail 
that  the  same  abuse  should  creep  into  the  reform  move- 
ment which  was  carried  on  upon  American  soil.  Dr. 
Wise  little  by  little  abolished  the  sermon,  and,  as  far  as 
I  know,  he  was  the  first  to  reintroduce  the  lecture  and 
courses  of  lectures  into  the  temple.  The  sermon,  in  which 
the  preacher  felt  at  liberty  to  shower  upon  his  hearers  an 
effusion  of  undeserved  vituperations,  has  now  fallen  into 
desuetude;  and  the  lecture,  in  which  the  rabbi,  as  a 
teacher,  attempts  to  enlighten  his  hearers  on  all  subjects 
which  he  thinks  will  make  them  wiser  and  better,  has 
risen  in  favor.  This  change  is  a  result  of  Dr.  Wise's 
good  judgment  and  discrimination. 

Dr.  Wise  has  now  passed  that  period  of  life  in  which  a 
man  is  able  to  create  new  things.  He  has  now  turned, 
as  is  quite  natural,  a  conservative.  His  endeavors  are 
now  directed  to  preserve  and  conserve  the  results  of  his 
labors.  He  intends,  however,  his  pupils  to  take  up  the 
work  where  it  has  slipped  from  his  hands  ;  and  if  ever  a 
man  may  have  reason  to  prophesy  that  new  and  still 
greater  developments  are  in  store  for  Judaism,  he  is  the 


RABBI    ISAAC    M.    WISE    AND    HIS    TIME  310 

man,  for  he  has  paved  the  wa}-,  and  knows  whither  it  will 
lead.  The  changes  which  liave  been  wrought  in  Judaism, 
the  points  in  which  American  Judaism  deviates  from  tlic 
Judaism  of  the  past  and  even  from  the  present  European 
Judaism,  can  best  be  discerned  in  the  platform  agreed 
upon  by  a  convention  of  some  American  rabbles,  which 
was  held  about  two  years  ago  in  Pittsburg,  Pa.  I  dis- 
cussed at  that  time  the  meaning  and  the  importance  of 
the  platform,  and  have  nothing  to  add  to  or  to  take  away 
from  what  I  said  then.^ 

1  See  page  170,  Messianic  Expectations  and  Modern  Judaism  (S.  E. 
Cassino  &  Co.,  41  Arch  St.,  Boston,  Mass.,  1886). 


XXIV. 


THE    PRESENT   HOUR 


EaiPEROR  Nero  is  reported  to  have  expressed  himself 
as  follows :  "  I  wish  that  the  Roman  people,  taken  as  a 
whole,  had  but  one  head  and  one  neck ;  I  would  then 
snatch  a  sword  and  strike  it  off  with  one  blow."  What 
benefit  the  crazy  Caesar  would  have  derived  from  the  feat 
is  rather  difficult  to  imagine.  One  would  think  that  the 
only  survivor  would  have  felt  rather  lonesome  in  the  vast 
realms  of  the  Roman  empire  after  the  death  of  all  his 
subjects.  While,  however,  the  use  which  he  intended  to 
make  of  the  individualization  of  his  people  is  both  cruel 
and  nonsensical,  the  wish  itself  appeals  rather  strongly 
to  our  imagination.  There  is  not  a  person  who,  were  it 
possible,  would  not  like  to  see  a  whole  nation  acting  as 
with  one  head,  and  all  differences  of  opinion,  so  frequent 
among  the  many,  removed  forever.  How  pleasant  it 
would  be  for  an  orator  to  address  a  community  with  but 
one  head.  This  cranium  would  then  either  ao^ree  or 
disagree  with  him,  and  if  he  should  be  able  to  impress  it 
with  the  justice  of  his  cause,  or  with  the  correctness  of 
liis  arguments,  his  work  would  be  finished;  while  under 
prevailing  conditions  he  meets  no't  only  one  objector  to 
his  views,  but  as  many  as  he  has  hearers.  He  is  obliged 
to  begin  the  conversion  of  the  second  one  before  he  has 
scarcely  finislied  with,  tlie  first,  and  his  life  ebbs  away 
before  he  has  done  with  a  small  number.     It  would  be  a 

3U 


THE    PRESENT    HOUR  315 

good  thing,  also,  in  many  other  respects,  could  a  whole 
community,  or  a  whole  class  of  people,  be  individualized  — 
that  is,  pressed  together  in  a  mould  to  one  individual 
form  ;  and  I,  for  one,  should  like  to  see,  if  it  were  only 
for  a  moment,  the  Avhole  Jewish  community  of  to-day 
possessed  of  but  one  head.  I  would  then,  perhaps,  be 
able  to  extract  by  proper  questioning  from  this  head 
what  its  religious  views  are  in  reality,  or  how  it  defines 
the  word  Judaism.  Under  conditions  as  they  are,  it  is 
an  absolute  impossibility  to  establish  a  definition  of  that 
term  which  would  suit  the  many  heads  and  man}-  brains 
which  compose  what  we  call  the  Jewish  community. 
What  would  please  the  one  would  dis})lease  the  other,  and 
it  is  a  daily  experience  that  no  sooner  does  a  man  venture 
to  define  what  he  thinks  Judaism  is  than  he  is  contra- 
dicted by  a  hundred  who  differ  with  him,  who  tell  him 
that  what  he  calls  Judaism  is  not  the  genuine  article,  and 
that  they  alone  held  a  monopoly  of  it. 

I  wish  to  describe*  the  Judaism  of  the  present  hour  ; 
but  is  such  a  description  within  the  reach  of  possibility  ? 
It  is  supposed  that,  scattered  among  all  nations,  between 
ten  and  fifteen  millions  of  Jews  are  at  present  iidiabiting 
the  earth.  Are  these  fifteen  millions  of  individuals  all  of 
one  mind  in  matters  of  religion?  Is  their  conce[)tion  of 
God  the  same  ?  Are  the}^  actuated  by  the  same  motives  ? 
Are  they  united  upon  the  same  platform  of  religious 
principles?  Who  will  say  they  are  ?  From  the  Jew  of 
Turkey,  Galicia,  or  Russia,  who  still  superstitiously  be- 
lieves in  the  miraculous  power  of  a  Bal-Shem  ;  who,  being 
brought  up  in  ignorance,  has  not  the  least  knowledge  of 
the  universe,  to  the  refined  Hebrew  of  Gerraan3%  or  the 
cultured  Israelite  of  free  America,  what  a  number  of 
rounds,  what  a  number  of  various  shades  of  opinion,  what 


313  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

a  divergence  of  views.  And  has  only  the  representative 
of  one  of  these  shades  the  right  to  say,  "  My  views  alone 
are  the  correct  ones ;  my  definition  of  Judaism  is  the  only 
true  one  "  ?  Does  not  the  next  one  possess  the  same 
right?  Is  not  he  also  justified  in  exclaiming,  "You  are 
wrong;  your  definition  of  Judaism  is  an  imposition"? 
Well,  then,  if  I  am  to  speak  to  you,  as  I  intend,  of  the 
Judaism  of  the  jDresent  hour,  can  I  include  in  it  all  these 
varying  and  contradictory  definitions?  Surely  not.  I 
can  only  speak  of  that  stage  in  the  development  of  Juda- 
ism which  I  perceive,  which  I  see  through  my  eyes,  as  it 
comes  under  my  observation.  I  must  be  satisfied  to 
allow  others  to  differ  with  me  ;  I  must  be  satisfied  when 
they  shall  say  to  me,  "  Hold  on,  friend !  what  you  define 
as  Judaism  is  anything  but  that."  I  may  claim  tlie  same 
right,  I  may  differ  as  much  with  them  as  the}^  do  witli  me, 
and  I  may  hold  that  their  definitions  are  as  erroneous  as 
they  think  mine  are.  But  I  must  trace  my  picture  re- 
gardless of  consequences,  and  thos^  who  may  find  that  it 
is  a  true  photograph,  that  I  do  reflect  their  ideas,  may 
then  acknowledge  that  I  have  expounded  their  views 
at  least,  and  with  this  meagre  result  I  must  rest  con- 
tent. 

It  may  be  unfortunate,  or  at  least  unpleasant,  for  us 
that  we  spring  from  a  different  branch  of  the  human  tree 
than  the  rest  of  our  fellow-citizens.  It  would  be,  perhaps, 
both  more  pleasant  and  advantageous  to  us  were  tlie 
religious  opinions  in  which  we  differ  from  ou*r  neighbors 
of  a  mere  doctrinal  nature  and  not  tinged  with  racial 
prejudices.  But  there  is  no  use  butting  against  facts 
which  we  have  not  tlie  power  of  changing.  Conditions 
over  wliich  we  have  no  control  make  us  what  we  are  ;  as 
little  as  we  can  be  held  responsible  for  the  orientalism  of 


•  THE    IMtKSKXT    HOUR  317 

our  features,  so  little  can  we  be  held  responsible  for  the 
})eculiarity   of   our   modes    of    thinking    and    reasoning. 
Here  we  are  as  we  are ;  and  no  matter  whether  it  may  be 
advantageous  and  pleasant  to  us  or  not,  we  are  Jews  by 
force  of  our  birth,  and  cannot  help  remaining  such  to  the 
h(Uir  of  our  death.     Through  natural  selection,  traits  have 
been  evolved  in  our  character   wliich  we   believe   to  be 
highly  commendable  and  to  be  of  immeasurable  usefulness 
to  human  society.     Our  neighbors,  on  account  of  their 
so-called  Aryan  extraction,  do  not  seem  to  see  things  in 
the  same  light  as  we  do,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  they 
differ  with  us.     We  claim  that,  taken  on  the  average,  we 
are  in  a  high  degree    energetic,  ambitious,  and   sympa- 
thetic ;    that    the    logical  department   of   our    reason    is 
more  strongly  developed  than   the  emotional  part  of  it, 
and  that,  therefore  our  observation  has  a   keener    edge. 
Where  others  are  satisfied  to  acquiesce   in   the  assurance 
of  faith,  an   inborn  skepticism  stimulates   us   to   renewed 
inquiries.     How  many  of  these  claims  may  be  just  I  shall 
leave    at   present   an    open    question,    although    it   does 
remain  a  fact  that  by  force  of  the   accident  of  our  birth 
our  religious  views  have  ever  taken,  and  could  not  help 
taking,  a  rationalistic  turn.     The  typical  Jew  was  never 
a  believer.     He  either  thought  he  knew  (and  with  the 
real  or  imagined  knowledge  of  a  thing  belief  ends),  or  he 
knew  not,  and  then   he  said  so,  and  became    (what  we 
to-day  are  wont  to  stigmatize)  an  agnostic.     Tliis  inborn 
characteristic  trait  we  must  not  overlook,  esi^eciall}'  when 
it  has  been  allowed  full  swing   in  a  country  like  ours, 
where  the  state  does  not  interfere  in  matters  of  religion. 
If,  therefore,  we  wish  to  describe  the  highest  plane   to 
which  Judaism  has  risen,  and  where  it  stands  to-day,  we 
must  not  seek  for  it  in  a  country  where  a  despotic  govern- 


318  DISSOLVING    VIEWS  • 

ment  is  suppressing  intelligence  and  liberty  in  all  its 
branches ;  we  must  turn  to  that  only  country  in  the 
world  where  the  church  is  totally  separated  from  the 
state,  and  freedom  of  conscience  is  respected  as  the  in- 
alienable right  of  every  citizen.  When  we  look  about  in 
our  country  with  open  eyes,  and  with  an  unbiassed  mind, 
when  we  sum  up  the  religious  opinions  of  intelligent  co- 
religionists in  all  spheres  of  life,  as  we  hear  them  expressed 
in  daily  conversation,  in  the  pulpit,  upon  the  platform,  or 
find  them  permeating  the  literature  of  the  day,  when  then 
we  cut  horizontally  through  the  bulk  of  these  conflicting 
but  intelligent  and  intelligible  ideas,  I  think  we  shall  find 
the  plane  which  we  are  seeking. 

Religion  is  the  knowledge  of  God,  of  the  universe,  and 
of  the  relation  in  which  man  places  himself  to  both.  The 
question  arises,  therefore,  what  does  the  intelligent  Ameri- 
can Israelite,  as  an  average,  think  of  God,  of  the  universe, 
and  what  does  he  consider  his  relation  to  both?  The  Jew 
has  never  denied  a  God,  nor  will  he  ever  do  so.  From 
its  very  origin,  Judaism  has  endeavored  to  purify  the  con- 
ception which  man  holds  of  a  supreme  being.  It  opposed 
the  representation  of  God  in  any  form  whatsoever,  and 
in  course  of  time  it  rose  to  the  conception  tliat  God 
was  one,  the  sole  source  of  all  existence,  the  only  cre- 
ator of  the  universe,  the  only  father  of  all  mankind. 
Even  Spinoza  did  not  deny  the  existence  of  a  God.  On 
the  contrary,  the  Jewish  conception  of  the  oneness  of 
God  reached  in  him  its  highest  cultivation.  He  attacked 
polytheism  in  its  last  refuge  —  dualism.  In  his  philoso- 
phy, God  and  the  universe  are  inseparably  one.  Call  the 
modern  American  Israelite  by  what  opprobrious  name  you 
please,  call  him  pantheist  or  agnostic,  he  is  anything  but 
an  atheist.      He  accepts  a  God ;    he   cannot    think  of  a 


THE   PRESENT    HOUR  -^l-^ 

creation  without  a  creator;  and  the  more  he  learns  about 
the  wonders  of  the  universe,  the  more  he  becomes  con- 
scious of  its  vastness,  the  more  does  he  grasp  God's  attri- 
butes,— his  oneness,  liis  eternity,  his  power,  and  his  love, 
—  the  more  intense  does  he  feel  his  dependence  upon  him, 
and  the  deeper  does  he  bow  before  him  in  reverential 
worship. 

What  is,  therefore,  the  reason  that  he  is  so  frequently- 
called  an  atheist,  or  that  fears  are  expressed  that  if  his 
progress  continues  in  the  same  ratio  he  will  in  a  very  short 
time  land  in  atheism?  The  reason  is  obvious.  He 
refuses  to  accept  the  low  and  degrading  conceptions  of 
God  which  have  come  to  him  from  the  past,  from  genera- 
tions of  people  to  whom  the  earth  was  the  only  creation 
of  importance,  to  whom  the  myriads  of  suns  and  stars 
were  so  many  lamps  distributed  nightly  in  the  heavens  for 
the  amusement  of  man.  He  refuses  to  accept  God  as  a 
sort  of  invisible  man,- dwelling  beyond  the  sky,  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  wind  up  daily  the  grand  mechanism  of  the 
universe.  His  conception  of  the  Supreme  Being  rises  so 
high  that  it  does  not  allow  him  to  think  of  God  as  being 
useful.  He  does  not  believe  that  God  would  disturb  the 
grand  order  of  things  for  his  (man's)  special  benefit,  and 
that  at  his  mere  suggestion  he  would  grant  him  a  few 
more  daj's  to  live  or  a  few  more  of  the  good  things  of  this 
earth,  in  contradiction  to  the  general  laws  of  the  universe. 
He  objects  to  degrading  God  to  the  office  of  a  watchman, 
whose  presence  is  intended  to  intimidate  the  refractoiy 
members  of  society ;  nor  is  he  able  to  think  of  him  as  an 
Eastern  despot,  who  must  be  approached  with  genuflexion, 
in  a  most  slavish  manner,  and  who  must  be  addressed  in 
terms  of  flattery  which  would  be  disgusting  to  a  man  of 
common-sense  were  they  directed  to  him.    The  conception 


320  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

of  God  has  risen  in  our  days  among  Jews,  on  account  of 
their  more  strongly  developed  ralioiiulisui,  if  not  to  the 
highest  purity,  at  least  as  near  to  it  as  it  has  ever  come, 
and  he  discards,  therefore,  the  conception  of  the  useful 
God,  the  God  whom  his  prayer  and  his  solicitation  can 
actuate,  and  it  is  on  that  account  that  he  is  reproached 
with  atheistical  tendencies.  In  consequence  of  this 
exalted  conception  of  God,  no  ceremonial  whatsoever 
seems  to  give  him  satisfaction.  If  he  is  to  express  his 
feelings  of  admiration  and  adoration  in  words  of  praj^er, 
he  demands,  at  least,  that  the  effusion  of  his  devotion 
should  be  a  simultaneous  one,  that  it  should  be  brought 
forth  upon  the  spur  of  the  moment,  and  should  be  ex- 
pressive of  what  he  really  thinks  and  feels,  and  not  of 
what  others  wish  him  to  think  or  to  feel.  He  rejects  as 
hypocritical  the  senseless  rehearsal  of  praj'^ers  which  were 
formulated  in  ages  that  have  long  passed  by,  and  under 
impressions  far  different  from  his  own. 

The  intelligent  Israelite  of  to-day  is  not  the  pessimist 
which  many  wish  to  make  him  out ;  he  is  an  optimist. 
The  universe  does  not  appear  to  him  (as  to  the  pessimist) 
the  worst  of  all  imaginable  creations,  or  as  an  unsuccessful 
attempt  of  a  creator  limited  in  power ;  nor  does  he  con- 
sider it  as  having  been  cursed  by  its  Maker  in  a  fit  of 
anger.  His  God  is  all-wise  and  all-powerful ;  he  could 
not  make  mistakes  nor  had  he  ever -failed  in  his  en- 
deavors. The  universe  is  to  him  a  mechanism  too  won 
derful  to  be  grasped  by  the  human  brain.  He  holds  that 
it  has  been  and  still  is  developing  and  transforming,  after 
well  defined  laws,  which  are  as  eternal  as  it  is  itself.  Not 
a  discord  mars  its  harmony,  and  misery  has  no  place  in  it. 
Its  pulsation  is  composed  of  the  double  beat  of  emanation 
and  absorption.     What  we  call  pain  or  misery  are  merely 


THE   PRESENT   HOUR  321 

the  indications  that  the  existence  of  some  individual  form 
is  nearing  its  end,  is  about  to  be  absorbed,  is  about  to 
melt  over  in  forms  of  which  it  lacks  conception.  All 
forms  serve  one  purpose,  all  are  the  manifestation  of  one 
inexhaustible  source  of  life.  The  rational  thinker  lifts 
himself  far  beyond  that  former  selfish  conception  that  the 
wliole  universe  was  made  for  the  sake  of  his  little  self, 
and  that  it  is  a  failure  in  as  much  as  it  has  not  placed  him 
outside  of  its  immutable  laws,  but  has  subjected  him  to 
them,  like  other  beings.  From  this  grand  conception  of 
the  universe  rise  all  his  hopes.  He  conquers  death,  the 
transition  from  life  to  life,  comforted  by  the  hope  that 
life  cannot  be  destroyed.  If  his  hopes  are  not  stretched 
so  far  as  to  include  rewards,  which,  after  all,  are  noth- 
ing else  but  conditions  favorable  to  life,  his  fears  are  not 
aroused  by  the  expectation  of  a  bodily  punishment,  which, 
if  we  define  it,  is  nothing  but  a  condition  unfavorable  to 
existence. 

Reward  and  punishment  are  the  consequence  of  causes, 
they  follow  our  every  action  in  accordance  with  immuta- 
ble  laws  that  have  linked  cause  and  effect  together. 
These  laws  hold  good,  as  far  as  we  know,  in  the  world  of 
forms  in  which  we  reside  at  present,  but,  without  a  denial 
of  immortalit}^  we  may  doubt  whether  a  cause  effective 
in  this  realm  could  be  welded  to  an  effect  in  a  life  to  come. 
"  One  world  at  a  time  "  has  become  in  our  days  the  motto 
of  the  reasoning  Israelite. 

Only  as  long  as  God  was  supposed  to  step  occasionally 
forth  in  man-like  fashion  from  behind  the  wings,  and  to 
set  matters  aright  upon  the  stage  of  this  world,  which 
otherwise  would  have  gone  wrong,  so  long  could  the  idea 
prevail  that  God  has  helped  man,  by  means  of  revela- 
tion, to  jump  in  one  leap  over  obstacles  which  otlierwise 


B22  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

he  could  not  have  sunnounted  in  ages  ;  that  he  has  sent 
to  them,  or  dictated  to  them,  books  containing  the  mes- 
sage of  an  absent  father  to  his  far-away  children.  Refus- 
ing to  admit  any  longer  the  absence  of  the  father,  a 
written  message  becomes  unnecessary.  The  Bible,  bring- 
ing to  us  the  greetings  of  our  ancestors,  is  to  the  modern 
Israelite  the  work  of  man,  the  work  of  human  genius. 
We  call  it  true  so  far  as  it  depicts  truly  the  ideas  of  the 
])ast  writers,  the  conceptions  which  they  had  of  God  and 
of  the  world,  and  the  relation  in  which  they  placed  them- 
selves to  both.  We  call  the  Bible  the  book  of  books  so 
far  as  it  gives  us  notice  of  many  historical  events  which 
otherwise  would  have  been ,  lost  to  us,  and  we  call  its 
records  true  in  so  far  as  its  authors  did  not  write  with  any 
intention  of  deceiving  us,  but  under  the  impression  that 
whatever  they  noted  down  had  occurred,  and  was  the 
truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  It  has  ceased,  however, 
to  be  to  us  the  word  of  God,  so  far  as  this  means  that 
God  has  either  directly  or  indirectly  been  its  author  and 
that  therefore  he  may  be  held  responsible  for  all  his 
utterances.  Geographical  and  historical  statements  in 
discord  with  fact  and  the  narratives  of  miracles  contained 
in  the  biblical  books  have  ceased,  therefore,  to  be  credited 
by  us.  We  no  longer  think  that  we  are  placed  between 
the  horns  of  the  dilemma,  and  we  must  accept  these 
things,  no  matter  how  our  reason  and  our  better  knowl- 
edge revolts  against  them,  or  forfeit  the  name  of  Israel- 
ites. On  the  contrary,  the  Bible  becomes  to  us  the  more 
sublime  the  more  its  very  errors  prove  its  antiquity,  and 
we  become  the  more  proud  of  our  ancestors  the  more  we 
find  that  they  endeavored  to  reach  the  highest  possible 
conception  of  a  supreme  being  even  in  those  ancient  times 
and  with  the  limited  knowledge  of  things  at  their  disposal. 


THE   PRESENT   HOUR  323 

Our  relation  to  God  is  like  that  of  a  confidino:  cliild  to 
a  loving  father,  and  our  relation  to  the  universe  that  of  the 
part  to  the  whole.  Stone,  plant,  and  animal  are  forms  that 
have  sprung  from  the  same  creative  power;  how  much 
more  must  that  being  be  our  brother  in  which  the  fire  of 
leason  burns  with  the  same  brightness  as  it  does  in  our- 
selves. All  men  are  brethren  ;  tliere  is  but  one  father 
and  one  common  brotherhood.  Before  the  God  of  our 
conception  there  is  no  distinction,  there  exists  no  birth- 
right. The  idea  of  class  and  race  distinction,  of  a  first 
born  or  second  born  of  God,  is  a  relic  of  a  barbarous  past. 
God  loves  all  with  the  same  love,  and  acknowledges  no 
difference  between  man  an<^  man.  For  this  reason,  the 
intelligent  Israelite  of  to-day  endeavors  to  remove  all 
those  barriers  which  former  ages  arose  to  separate  man 
from  man. 

While  it  has  often  been  conceded  that  the  forms  of  a 
religion  may  change,  and  that  they  have  changed,  it  has 
ever  been  denied  that  its  i)rinciples  may  be  altered  without 
suicidal  consequences,  and  yet  here  we  behold  that, 
thongh  many  principles  of  onr  religion  have  undergone 
great  changes,  Judaism  still  lives,  and  even  lias  been  im- 
proved. Forms  cannot  change  unless  the  i)rinci[ile  ujjou 
wliich  they  have  been  built  changes,  and  we  slionld,  tliere- 
fore,  not  wonder  why  many  of  our  ceremonial  forms  fail 
to-day  to  satisfy  our  religious  craving,  why  religion  ap- 
parently seems  to  retrograde.  Forms  decay  as  do  our 
corpses  wlien  the  eidivening  principle,  tlie  soul,  has  passed 
away.  In  vain  are  all  our  pleas  for  the  preservation  or 
restitution  of  ceremonies  and  festivals  which  formerly 
were  held  in  high  lionor.  At  tlieir  time  they  were  the 
expression  of  an  enlivening  principle.  We  may  mourn 
their  demise,  but  we  can  never  bring  them  back   to  life 


BM  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

unless  we  are  able  to  restore  to  them  the  soul  wliich  has 
escaped.  The  jDreseut  unsatisfactory  condition  of  our  re- 
ligious life  finds  its  cause  in  the  change  of  principles 
which  has  taken  place  unobservedly.  The  wider  and 
newer  conception  of  God,  of  the  universe,  and  of  our 
relation  to  both  is  3'et  in  its  infancy.  It  has  come  upon 
us  almost  over  niglit  with  our  better  knowledge  of  the 
universe,  and  it  has  not  yet  been  able  to  branch  out  into 
new  forms  on  account  of  tlie  old  ones  barring  their  way. 
But  there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  these  new  prin- 
ciples will  find  expression  in  outward  forms  as  well  as 
did  the  religious  theories  which  were  the  outcome  of  any 
of  the  former  stages  of  development.  The  growtii  of  new 
forms  is  a  mere  question  of  time,  and  he  who  shall  live 
will  see. 

Do  I  need  to  dwell  upo^i  the  fact  that  the  duties  wliich 
we  owe  our  fellow-beings  find  their  plainest  but  strongest 
delineation  in  the  maxim  of  a  common  brotherhood  of  all 
men,  and  that  therefore  the  true  American  Israelite  con- 
siders it  his  foremost  duty  to  fulfil  them  —  to  be  just,  true, 
and  charitable  ?  He  takes  the  liveliest  interest  in  the 
progress  of  mankind,  as  such,  and  lends  a  helping  hand 
toward8  tlie  solution  of  all  questions  which  concern  the 
Common  welfare  of  all.  He  is  first  a  man,  then  an  Israel- 
ite. He  asks  first  what  will  humanity  profit  by  this  or 
that  measure,  and  then  what  profit  will  come  to  the 
religious  body  to  wliich  he  belongs? 

I  fail  to  see  wherein  the  principles  of  which  I  have 
spoken  are  not  an  evolution  of  Judaism  or  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  same  Jewish  spirit  which  I  have  traced  in  my 
previous  lectures.  I  fail  to  see  wiierein  they  are  atheistic 
or  agnostic.  The  modern  Israelite  knows,  and  not  merely 
believes,  that  God   is.  was,  and  ever  shall    ])o.      The   uni- 


THE   PRESENT   HOUR  325 

verse  shows  to  him  such  a  beautiful  order  and  harmony, 
such  an  infinite  power  and  wisdom,  that  it  appears  to  liim 
the  perfect  manifestation  of  a  perfect  God.  These  premises 
lead  him  to  the  consoling  hope  of  immortality,  as  well  as 
to  a  clear  understanding  of  the  duties  Avhich  he  owes  to 
his  fellow-beings  while  passing  through  the  phases  of 
existence  allowed  to  him  in  the  present  world  of  forms. 
Neither  are  these  conceptions  of  God,  of  the  universe,  and 
of  our  relation  to  both.  Christian  in  their  origin.  On  the 
contrar}^  instead  of  leading  towards  it,  the}^  lead  away 
from  Christianity,  and  I  dare  say  that  the  modern  Israel- 
ite has  wiped  away  the  last  traces  of  those  Christian  ideas 
which  in  former  ages  have  crept  into  Judaism.  Chris- 
tianity is  pessimistic  in  its  conception  ;  it  stands  and  falls 
with  the  depravity  of  the  material  world.  To  the  Chris- 
tian the  world  is  a  vale  of  misery,  and  man  the  most  sin- 
ful and  most  miserable  creature  upon  it.  Unless  redeemed 
through  the  vicarious  atonement  of  the  son  of  God,  he  is 
doomed  to  eternal  perdition.  The  life  to  come,  and  not 
the  present  life,  is  alone  worthy  of  his  consideration. 
Good  actions  and  a  noble  life  are  valued  as  the  means,  not 
as  the  end.  They  are  to  be  practised  not  because  it  be- 
hooves man  to  lead  a  viituous  life  and  to  fulfil  his  duties 
towards  his  fellow-beings,  but  because  either  a  reward  is 
connected  with  their  fulfilment  or  a  severe  punishment 
follows  the  neglect. 

It  is  to  be  greatly  regretted  that  religions  are  held  to 
be  so  many  different  bundles  of  forms,  and  that  whenever 
the  future  of  a  religion  is  discussed,  its  forms  and  not  its 
spirit  are  most  considered.  People  think  they  could  im- 
mortalize their  religion  if  they  could  but  preserve  its 
forms  ;  it  is,  however,  the  si)irit  which  creates  a  suitable 
dwelling-place  for  itself,  and  not  the  form  which  invites 


826  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

the  visit  of  the  spirit.  To  describe  the  present  condition 
of  Judaism  by  describing  the  difTereut  modes  of  worship, 
whicli  lit  present  are  indifferently  performed  in  a  hundred 
modifications,  would  be  exactly  the  same  as  if  I  should 
describe  the  garment  which  a  man  wears  when  intending 
to  describe  his  character.  You  cannot  judge  a  man's 
religion  by  the  prayer-book  which  he  carries  under  his 
arm,  nor  by  the  place  of  worship  to  which  you  see  him 
wending  his  way.  You  can  judge  it  alone  from  the  con- 
ception which  he  holds  of  God  and  the  universe,  and 
from  the  relation  in  ■which  he  places  himself  to  both. 
These  views  I  have  attempted  to  collect,  and  these  views 
I  have  endeavored  to  present  to  you.  They  are  the  lead- 
ing religious  thoughts  of  the  thinking  and  intelligent  Is- 
raelite of  the  present  hour. 


XXV. 

CONCLUSION 

It  appears  to  be  one  of  the  immutable  laws  by  which 
the  world  of  thoughts  and  ideas  is  governed  that,  as  our 
years  increase,  we  grow  more  and  more  conservative. 
While  the  young  man  is  ever  desirous  of  revolutionizing 
existing  conditions,  while  he  eagerly  welcomes  every- 
thing that  looks  like  a  departure  from  the  accustomed 
road,  the  man  of  riper  years  endeavors  anxiously  to 
preserve  the  ideas  which  he  has  formed,  and  abhors  all 
innovations.  The  reason  for  the  change  from  what  we 
call  radicalism  to  conservatism,  which  occurs  in  every 
man  and  is  a  mere  question  of  time  with  every  one  of 
us,  is  not  so  deeply  hidden  that  it  cannot  be  found. 
In  our  younger  years  we  feel  that  we  have  ample  time  be- 
fore us  to  test  a  new  thing.  We  must,  in  fact,  test  every- 
tliing  that  comes  for  the  first  time  within  the  reach  of  our 
observation,  be  it  old  or  new,  and  it  matters,  therefore, 
little  to  us  which  of  the  two  we  give  a  trial.  If  a  theory 
does  not  satisfy  our  craving,  or  fails  to  convince  us,  we 
discard  it,  and  try  anotlier,  until,  in  course  of  time,  we 
have  collected  a  number  of  maxims,  all  of  which  have 
been  well  tested,  and  all  of  which  we  have  found  both 
expedient  and  reliable.  These  we  call  our  experiences. 
We  allow  ourselves  not  only  to  be  guided  by  them,  with- 
out any  further  test,  but  in  our  declining  years  they 
become  more  and  more  dominant  in  us.     Feeling  that  oui 

327 


828  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

days  are  numbered,  and  that  sufficient  time  will  not  be 
left  us  to  test  new  ideas,  we  cling  to  the  maxims  from 
which  we  have  derived  satisfaction,  and  fail  to  see  how  a 
novel  idea  could  improve  the  present  satisfactory  con- 
dition of  things.  We  furthermore  feel,  when  our  strength 
begins  to  fail  us,  that  we  could  no  longer  stand  the  brunt 
of  a  controversy,  as  we  could  when  we  were  young.  We 
lack,  therefore,  the  courage  to  risk  the  certain  for  the 
uncertain,  and  we  persuade  ourselves  that  "  to  leave 
well  enough  alone  "  is  the  best  policy  for  us. 

Thus  humanity  is,  and  has  ever  been,  split  into  two 
large  factions,  the  progressive  and  the  conservative.  One 
is  composed  of  the  young  element,  the  other,  of  the  old; 
one  is  represented  by  the  son,  the  other,  by  the  father. 
They  seldom  understand  each  other,  nor  is  it  to  be 
expected  that  they  can.  The  father  forgets  that  he  too 
was  once  a  son,  that  he  too  was  once  young,  that  years 
ago  he  too  helped  to  push  the  wheel  of  time  forward ; 
and  the  son  never  dreams  that  at  some  future  time  he 
will  become  like  his  father,  that  with  advancing  years  he 
will  grow  conservative,  that  with  the  decline  of  his  vital 
forces  he  will  look  with  the  same  disfavor  upon  innova- 
tions as  does  his  father  now.  Notwithstanding  their 
pronounced  hostility,  both  of  these  factions  are  needed, 
and  could  not  be  well  spared  in  the  clock-work  of  human 
society.  The  one  may  be  compared  to  its  spring,  the 
other  to  its  pendulum.  The  one  forces  the  wheels  into 
rotation,  the  other  regulates  their  movement.  Break  the 
spring  of  a  clock  and  its  motion  will  cease.  Unhitch  the 
pendulum,  and  the  wheels,  after  turning  for  a  short  while 
with  great  rapidity,  will  come  to  a  sudden  stop.  The 
pendulum  ought  not,  therefore,  to  undervalue  the  driving 
force  of  the  spring,  nor  ought  the  spring  to  complain  of 


CONCLUSION  329 

the  restricting  tardiness  of  the  pendulum.  The  machine 
would  also  become  useless  in  case  both  forces  were  of 
equal  strength,  and  balanced  each  otlier.  To  prevent 
such  an  occurrence,  the  one  is  given  exactly  as  much 
more  force  than  the  other  as  is  needed  to  set  and  keep 
the  work  in  motion.  The  son  is  endov.-ed  by  nature  with 
exactly  as  much  more  vitality  than  his  father  as  is 
required  to  set  human  society  agoing,  and  to  keep  it 
progressing.  The  whole  history  of  tlie  human  race  is, 
therefore,  one  grand  demonstration  of  the  fact  tliat  the 
wheel  of  time  can  never  be  stayed  in  its  forward  motion  ; 
that  the  new  idea  has  ever  defeated  the  old  one  ;  that  the 
son  has  ever  risen  above  the  father,  and  the  pupil  above 
the  teacher. 

My  metaphor  com[niring  human  societ}'  to  a  clock-work 
which  is  set  in  motion  by  the  spring  called  youth  and 
regulated  by  the  pendulum  called  old  age  serves  its  pur- 
pose only  as  far  as  it  reaches,  but,  lilje  all  other  similes,  it 
does  not  cover  the  entire  ground.  If  humanity  were 
but  such  a  machine,  it  would  probabh"  be  able  to  turn 
the  hand  around  the  dial,  but  it  Avould  be  compelled  to 
move  it  always  in  the  same  circle.  The  propelling  force 
in  humanity,  however,  increases  in  the  same  ratio  as  the 
latter  progresses.  One  discovery  leads  to  a  dozen  of 
others,  one  invention  paves  the  way  to  a  multitude  of 
others.  The  more  tools  a  man  makes,  the  more  .and 
better  ones  can  he  construct.  Slow  in  the  beginning,  we 
find  the  human  kind  accelerating  its  pace  with  every  new 
generation  :  and,  when  we  look  back  upon  the  strides 
which  humanity  has  made  in  the  last  century,  we  become 
assured  that  the  golden  age,  the  age  of  wonders  and 
miracles,  is  not  behind  us,  but  before  us.  Our  imagina- 
tion almost  deserts  us,  and  folds  despairingly  its  wings, 


330  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

when  we  begin  to  think  of  the  rapidity  with  which 
humanity  is  sure  to  progress  during  the  next  hundred 
years,  aided  by  the  discoveries  and  inventions  of  tlie  pres- 
ent century.  What  may  we  not  expect  of  a  future  that 
is  built  upon  such  a  present  ?  What  discoveries  and 
inventions  may  we  not  expect  of  the  generation  which 
inherits  our  labor-saving  machines,  our  railroads,  tele- 
graphs, and  telejihones ;  of  a  generation  that  from  its 
early  youth  has  become  accustomed  to  being  informed  at 
least  twice  in  twenty-four  hours  of  what  has  happened 
during  that  time  in  every  part  of  the  eartli ;  of  a  gener- 
ation that  has  built  a  royal  road  to  learning  and  wisdom 
such  as  has  never  existed  before? 

The  marvellous  inventions  and  discoveries  of  the  last 
century  are,  however,  by  no  means  the  only  attainments 
of  the  human  race.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  merely  the 
preparatory  steps  to  further  and  still  more  beneficial  con- 
ditions. In  the  same  proportion  that  mankind  has  be- 
come wiser  it  has  also  grown  better.  True,  we  are  not 
yet  perfect ;  true  that  there  is  yet  a  great  deal  of  misery 
to  be  removed,  that  there  are  many  vices  to  be  suppressed 
and  many  rough  edges  to  be  filed  off,  but,  on  the  average, 
humanity  has  grown  better.  I  have  mentioned  that  fact 
so  often  that  I  hesitate  to  repeat  it,  for  fear  of  becoming 
monotonous;  but  read  the  records  of  by-gone  ages,  and 
compare  the  standard  of  morality  reached  by  former  gen- 
erations with  that  reached  by  our  time,  and  you  will 
gladly  concede  that  mankind  has  grown  less  superstitious, 
less  fanatical,  less  barbarous,  less  cruel,  less  intemperate, 
than  it  has  ever  been  before.  And  now,  I  ask  you,  shall 
we  go  back  to  those  past  ages  when  people  were  naturally 
much  below  our  level,  both  in  wisdom  and  in  goodness, 
to  seek  there  for  that  highest  charm  which  shall  keep  us 


CONCLUSION  331 

upon  the  path  of  virtue,  which  shall  stimulate  us  in  hap- 
piness and  to  further  progress,  and  console  and  comfort  us 
in  misfortune,  or  to  seek  there  for  our  religion  ?  Religion 
must  not  be  sought  for  nor  can  it  be  found  in  the  past, 
for  it  is  the  very  product,  the  very  result  of  our  present 
attainments,  both  in  the  intellectual  and  moral  aspect. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  age  has  I'urmed  its  own  religious 
views.  Religion  has  forever  been  changing  in  the  same 
proportion  as  the  intellect luil  and  moral  progress  of  the 
people;  it  has  ever  accommodated  its  forms  to  the  spirit 
that  was  moving  the  generation  at  the  time.  This  fact, 
however,  is  not  so  widely  known  as  it  ought  to  be.  .  We 
have  been  made  to  believe,  for  various  reasons,  that  relig- 
ion has  come  to  us  from  an  age  of  which  we  have  hardly 
any  recollection.  We  were  told  that  in  the  most  ancient 
times  people  were  better  and  wiser  than  we  are  to-day, 
and  were,  therefore,  better  fitted  to  receive  the  grace  of 
God  than  we  are.  We  were  assured  that,  God  luiving 
once  revealed  his  will  and  his  laws,  it  became  the  duty  of 
mankind  to  preserve  them  intact  to  this  day,  and  that  we 
ouffht  to  transmit  the  same  inheritance  to  our  children  as 
we  have  received  from  our  fathers.  But  in  reality  nothing 
of  the  kind  has  taken  place.  Each  generation  was  gov- 
erned by  a  religion  of  its  own  invention,  and  what  was 
defended  as  the  religion  of  the  father  was  nothing  other 
than  the  religion  of  the  son.  My  course  of  lectures  was 
intended  to  prove  that  fact,  so  far  as  Judaism  is  concerned. 
My  historical  pictures  must  have  shown  you  that  Ezra's 
views  of  religion  were  far  different  from  those  that  were 
current  at  the  age  of  Moses,  and  that  what  he  expounded 
as  the  law  of  Moses  was  nothing  other  than  the  law  of 
Ezra.  They  must  have  shown  to  you  that  Ben  Saooai, 
Anan  Ben  David,  Mainionidcs,  and  the  other  expounders 


332  DISSOLVING    VIEWS 

of  Judaism  have  ever  interpreted  their  own  views  and 
ever  marked  the  changes  which  had  taken  place  as  well 
as  the  height  to  which  civilization  had  risen.  If  I  have 
been  successful  in  convincing  you  of  the  correctness  of 
this  one  proposition,  I  shall  consider  my  labors  well  re- 
warded ;  but  there  is  also  a  second  lesson  which  I  desire 
you  to  draw  from  the  historical  material  which  I  have 
brought  before  you  during  this  winter. 

The  forms  of  religion  have  never  been  changed  until 
the  principle  from  which  they  sprang  had  outlived  its 
usefulness.  In  this  proposition  I  run  much  more  counter 
to  public  opinion  than  I  did  in  my  first  proposition,  viz., 
that  religion  has  been  forever  changing.  As  a  rule,  it  is 
conceded  that  the  forms  of  religion  have  changed  in 
course  of  time,  but  it  is  emphatically  denied  that  the  spirit 
or  the  principles  of  religion  have  ever  altered.  But  if 
you  turn  the  pages  of  history  you  will  find  that  my  asser- 
tion is  not  unfounded.  Sacrifices,  for  example,  were  not 
changed  into  praj'ers  because  the  latter  had  become  more' 
fashionable.  We  would  offer  sacrifices  to-day  could  we 
but  believe  or  make  up  our  mind  to  believe  that  God 
needs  them  or  is  pleased  with  them.  As  long  as  people 
were  convinced  that  God  demanded  sacrifices,  that  the 
smoke  from  the  altar  brought  their  gifts  to  Him  that 
dwelleth  on  high,  and  as  long  as  it  was  a  principle  of 
religion  with  them  that  unless  a  sacrifice  was  made  after 
the  prescribed  fashion  the  wrath  of  God  would  be  aroused, 
that  he  would  visit  them  with  plagues,  or  at  least  with-' 
hold  his  favors,  so  long  did  people  conscientiously  bring 
these  offerings.  In  course  of  time,  however,  loftier  ideas 
of  God  began  to  circulate  among  the  people.  They  began 
to  doubt,  to  reason,  and  finally  to  disbelieve  in  the  efficacy 
of  a  sacrifice,  and  from  that  moment  the  doom  of  that 


CONCLUSION  333 

form  of  divine  worship  was  sealed.  True  tliat  while  the 
advanced  thinkers  of  the  age  denounced  the  custom  in 
their  speeches,  they  still  u[)held  it  in  practice,  but  the 
death-blow  was  given,  nevertheless,  and  it  became  merely 
a  question  of  time  when  it  was  to  be  abolished. 

Take  another  illustration :  the  Jews  had  learned  to 
believe  that  a  Messiah  would  come,  who,  gifted  with 
supernatural  power,  would  lead  them  back  to  Palestine, 
and  reestablish  them  iu  the  land  of  their  fathers  ;  they 
had  learned  to  believe  that  at  that  time  the  great  trumpet 
would  be  sounded  and  the  dead  would  rise  from  their 
graves  to  participate  in  the  general  rejoicing.  During 
many  ages  this  belief  was  a  principle  of  their  religion,  and 
forms  branched  out  which  were  in  the  strictest  harmony 
with  it.  If  the  same  belief  should  prevail  to-day,  if  the 
same  principle  sliould  still  hold  good  with  us,  I  am  sure 
that  we  would  gladly  and  willingly  uphold  all  the  forms 
connected  with  it.  We  would  study  the  Talmud  as  here- 
tofore because  it  would  be  necessary  for  us  to  make  our- 
selves familiar  with  the  laws  by  which  the  new  common- 
wealth would  have  to  be  governed ;  we  would  carefully 
observe  all  the  old  funeral  ceremonies,  that  we  might  be 
recognized  as  belonging  to  the  great  army  when,  at  the 
sound  of  the  trumpet,  tlie  dead  would  rise.  We  would 
by  no  means  invest  in  real  estate,  or  in  such  valuables  as 
could  not  easily  be  carried  away.  But  why  do  we  not 
observe  all  these  forms?  why  have  these  customs  become 
obsolete?  Simply  because  we  do  no  longer  believe  in  the 
principles  from  whence  they  sprang. 

The  divine  origin  of  the  Bible  was  surely  a  principle  of 
religion  for  many  centuries:  it  was  conscientiously  be- 
lieved that  the  scrolls  of  the  law  contained  the  very 
words  of   God.     They  were  therefore    highly   venerated. 


334  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

and  all  those  ceremonies  which  were  responsive  to  and 
expressive  of  that  belief  were  willingly  and  clieerfully 
performed  by  our  ancestors.  But  why  does  not  the  same 
ceremonial  inspire  its  to-day  with  the  same  enthusiasm  ? 
Why  does  it  leave  us  cold,  why  has  it  fallen  more  and 
more  into  desuetude?  Simply  because  the  underlying 
principle  has  undergone  a  change.  The  Bible  has  ceased 
to  be  to  us  a  work  of  divine  authorship ;  we  appreciate  it 
merely  as  a  work  of  human  genius,  and  thus  all  those 
ceremonies  which  represented  the  Bible  as  being  the 
direct  word  of  God  have  become  utterly  meaningless. 

I  could  continue  to  offer  proof  upon  proof  in  support 
of  my  proposition  that  only  when  the  principles  of  a 
religion  change,  the  forms  suffer  modification,  or  that  new 
principles  will  always  create  new  forms,  which  not  only 
will  give  satisfaction  but  will  be  conscientiously  per- 
formed by  us  as  long  as  the  vital  force  of  the  principle 
will  endure. 

The  third  and  last  lesson  which  my  lectures  were  in- 
tended to  convey  is  that  we  have  the  same  right  to  change 
our  religious  practices  as  had  our  ancestors.  We  have  not 
only  the  right,  but  it  becomes  our  duty  to  bring  our  re- 
ligious customs  into  conformity  with  the  demands  of  the 
day,  that  is,  with  the  principles  which  we  accept  as  valid 
for  us.  We  are  injuring  ourselves,  and,  what  is  worse, 
our  children,  when  we  continue  to  travel  the  road  of  in- 
difference and  hypocrisy  on  which  we  are  at  present  walk- 
ing. We  rob  ourselves  of  the  consolation  which  true 
religion  offers  to  its  followers,  and.  we  harm  our  children  by 
withholding  from  them  the  staff  upon  Avhich  they  should 
lean.  It  becomes  our  duty  to  bring  all  our  ceremonies, 
all  the  outward  manifestations  of  our  religious  life,  into 
conformity  with  the  views  which  we  hold  of  God,  of  the 


CONCLUSION  336 

universe,  and  of  the  relation  in  which  we  phice  ourselves 
to  both.  No  compromise  will  give  satisfaction  :  the  grim 
aut — auf,  either  —  o?-,  is  staring  into  our  faces.  Every 
religious  act,  every  religious  ceremony  must  express  ex- 
actly what  we  believe,  or  it  must  be  abandoned.  We 
must,  for  example,  either  keep  the  Sabbath,  if  we  really 
believe  that  the  day  ordained  by  the  Bible,  and  not  the 
principle  of  otie  day's  rest  out  of  seven,  is  of  importance, 
or  we  must  change  it.  All  our  haggling  and  compiomis- 
ing  remain  fruitless,  and  bring  our  religion  into  disre- 
spect. The  consequences  of  our  unwillingness  to  conform 
with  the  leading  spirit  of  the  time  become  more  visible 
with  every  year  and  every  day.  We  have  practically 
driven  the  younger  generation  out  of  our  temples,  and  we 
withhold  from  them  the  moral  instruction  which  should 
be  their  guide  througli  life,  and  of  which  they  are  so 
much  iu  need.  The  rising  generation,  in  spite  of  the 
estrangement  from  religion  which  has  been  brought  about 
by  our  unwillingness  to  yield  to  necessit}*,  is  craving  re- 
ligious instruction,  is  yearning  to  be  lifted,  by  appropriate 
services,  out  of  the  prevailing  materialism  into  a  higher 
spiritual  sphere.  What  use  that  we  build  magnificent 
temples  and  institute  elaborate  services,  if  we  fail  to  open 
them  at  a  time  when  the  hungry  can  come  and  partake 
of  the  food.  Tlie  time  has  come  when  we  must  strike  a 
new  road   and   open   new  avenues. 

New  measures  are  frequently  institnted  under  the  plea 
that  they  are  not  new,  but  that  they  have  given  satisfac- 
tion long  befoie.  and  iliat  they  are  covered  by  the  author- 
ity of  previous  ages.  This  is  mostly  done  to  check,  in  a 
measure,  the  natural  distrust  with  which  ever}^  new  and 
untested  idea  meets;  I  may,  therefore,  s;iy  as  well,  that 
no  matter  what  changes  are  to  be  made  in  order  to  liar- 


836  DISSOLVING   VIEWS 

monize  the  helpful  and  needful  outward  forms  of  religion 
with  current  principles,  they  are  neither  unparalleled  nor 
unprecedented,  but  that  every  age  has  done  as  we  do,  that 
it  has  always  asserted  the  very  same  right,  and  has 
worked  out  its  own  salvation. 

I  have  no  more  to  add,  except  the  wish  or  the  prayer 
that  my  words  may  have  fallen  upon  fertile  soil,  that  the 
historical  pictures  which  I  have  unrolled  before  you  may 
have  inspired  you  with  admiration  and  love  for  our  relig- 
ion, which,  as  I  claim,  is  the  religion  of  the  future,  the 
ever  changing  but  ever  living  religion  of  humanity. 


T  N  D  E  X. 


Aboab,  204,  205,  223 

Abrabauel,  Don  Isaac,  148,  149-1(32; 

biography  of,  1(>0-Iii2 
Abugufar,  Almansor,  calipli,  89 
Acco,  48,  130 
Acron,  30 

Adler,  Felix,  I'n.f.,  122,  124,  12tJ 
^schj'lus,  40 
/Esop,  115 
Alba,  183 
Albany, 304 
Albo,  Joseph,  135,  136-148;  biography 

of,  145 ;  belief  of,  145,  146 
Alexandria,  44,  120,  130 
Alexander  The  Great,  40, 41, 44, 45, 87 
Ali,  Mehemet,  283 
Altona,  227,  2:36 
Amenmes,  17 
America,  2(J(j,  251 
Amsterdam,  204,  20(i-213,  217, 219,  222- 

235 
Antiochus,  46 
Anton,  Carl,  237 
Arabia.  84,  85 
Arari,  David,  284 
Aristotle,  40,  128,  131 
Askenasi,  Jacob  Emden,  235,  236, 237, 

239,  242 
Asia  Minor,  41,  56 
At-Bash,  236 
Athens,  40,  58 
Auerbach,  Bertliohl,  218 
Aiigenspiegel,  Der,  172,  173,  175 
Austria,  243 

Babylonia,  87 

Bagdad, 88 

Baltimore,  302 

Batiach,  Ben,  54 

Beneviste,  Don  Vidal  Ben,  141 

Benedict  XIII.,  I'ope,  140,  143 

Berab,  Jacob,  198 


Berlin,  243,  244,  246,  256,  276 

Bible,  72,  75,  81,  84,  86,  88,  89,  90,  98, 
101,  103,  112,  118,  131,  133,  141,  168, 
177,  189,  194,  209,  219,  221,  232,  234, 
236,  256,  322,  333 

Boerne,  Karl  Ludwig,  253-265;  biog- 
raphy of,  2(j0-262 

Books,  Multiplication  of,  167-168 

Bonn,  276 

Braganza,  Fernando  de,  160 

Breslau,  277 

Buddhism,  4 

Bulaq,  Museum  of,  16 

Cabalah,  164,  188,  193,  194,  197,  200, 
219,  227,  229,  232,  234,  236,  242,  248, 
250;  defined,  195 

Cajsar,  5(),  83,  164 

Csesarea,  55 

Cairo,  120 

Calvin,  177 

Cambyses,  28 

Cantor,  273 

Carthage,  40,  46,  153 

Chananja,  89 

Charities,  Public  and  Private,  279- 
282 

Cherem,  223 

Christianity,  4,  32,  52,  76,  82,  84,  85, 
90,  103,  118,  124,  126,  132,  135,  140, 
152,  153,  l(i3,  Vyi,  177,  181,  185,  204, 
2:34.  240,  248,  250,  251,  269,  275-278 

Cicero,  KJO 

Cologne,  168,  1(59 

Columbus,  Christo])her,  151,  157 

Confiscation  of  Jewish  Book,  172 

Constance,  Council  of,  143 

Constantino]>]e,  lf)5,  185 

Constantine,  112 

Cordova,  127 

Corintli,  r)H 

Costa,  Uriel  da,  217,  223 


337 


338 


INDEX. 


Creinieux,  Adolph,  285 

Croesus,  290 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  201,  210,  211,   212, 

213 
Cyprus,  185 
Cyrus,  28 

Damascus,  283,  286 
Darius,  40 
David,  59,  KiO,  200 
David,  Anan  Ben,  78,  103,  331 
Demosthenes,  40 
Descartes,  221 
Dessau,  246 
Deutsch,  Emanuel,  68 
Dickens,  Charles,  289 
Disraeli,  Benjamin,  185 
Domitian,  64 
Duesseldorf,  262 

Egypt,  66 

Einhorn,  David,  Dr.,  302,  303 

Eibeschvietz,  Jonathan,liabbi,  227,242 

Eleazar,  48 

England,  112,  165,  241 

Epliraim,  Tribe  of,  20 

Esseues,  57 

Euripides,  40 

Evolution,  6,  7 

Ezra,  25-39,  72,  108,  194,  331 

Ezra,  Ebn,  220 

Faust,  254 

Ferdinand,  King  of  Siiain,  151.  152, 

155,  156,  1.57,  159 
Florus,  Gessius,  60 
France,  112, 165,  241,  243,  284 
Frankel,  265 
Fraenkel,  29^ 

Frankfort-on-the-Main,  27t) 
Frederick  the  Great,  243 
Fuerst,  265 

Gaul,  40,  56 

Geiger,  Abraham,  Dr.,  2ii5-278;  biog- 
-     raphy  of,  276 
Gemarah,  75,  78 
George,  Henry,  266 
Germany,  112,  163,  164,  1(55,  226,  245, 

270 
Ghetto,  232,  250,  254,  257 
Goldsmith,  288 
Goths,  153 
Graetz,  Prof..  (iS 
Grenada,  154 
Gratius,  Ortuiu,  169,  176 
Greece,  40,  41,  57,  58,  73,  112,  165 
Halevi,  Jehuda,  108-124;  philosophy 

of,  115,  116 


Handspiegel,  Der,  172 

Hapsburg,  243 

Hasmoneans,  82 

Hebrew  Union  College,  310 

Heidelberg,  276 

Heine,  Heinrich,  109,   13!t,  230,  253- 

265  ;  biography  of,  262.  26;> 
Hellenists,  46,  47,  50,  52 
Hellespont,  41 
Herodotus,  40,  166 
Hillel,  72,  73;  savings  of,  297 
Hohenzollern,  242,  24;i 
Holdheim,  265 
Holland,  222,  241 
Hoogstraten,  174,  176 
Honorius  IV.,  Pope,  69 
Homer,  85,  166 
Hyksos,  17 
Hyrcanos,  Eliezer  Ben,  55,  129 

Idumean,  53 

IngersoU,  R.  G.,  126, 138 

Inquisition,    151,    152,   153,   182,    188. 

217 
Intermarriage,  Restraint  of,  34,  .35 
Isabella.  151,  152 
Islam,  107,  126 
Israelite,  American,  311 
Israel,   Manasseh  Ben,  202-214.  219, 

223 
Israel,  tribe  of,  80 
Italy,  40 

Jacob,  113 
Jamnia,  60,  61 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  254 
Jeremiah,  160 

Jerusalem,  44,  47,  50, 53,  56,  60,  89,  95, 
109,  112,  113,  114,  120,  121,   130,   163, 
165,  179 ;  siege  of,  60 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  140,  141,  163.  169, 

206 
Jews,  Condition  of,  after  Fall  of  .Je- 
rusalem, 61 

Condition  of.  Time  of  Muses,  18- 

21 
History  of,  in  England,  208-2i)9 
Efforts  to  Colonize,  181 
Expulsion  of,  in  Spain,  1.55-159 
Objection    to    Admission  of.     in 

England,  212 
Prejudice  Again.st,  43,  44 
Requirements  of.  at  Time  of  Ezra. 
37,  38 
Josephus,  Flavins,  14,  17,  28,  47,  55 
Jost,  265 
Judah,  48 

Judea,  44,  47,  58,  59, 164 
Julian,  87 


INDEX. 


389 


Juelicl),284 

Justin  vf  Tiberias,  55 

Justinian,  Emperor,  (i9 

Kabaism,  98,  110,  118;  origin  of,  78; 

doctrine  of,  182-1<)0 
Karo,  Joseph,  189-201;  biograpliy  of, 

197 
Kiev.  2C)o 

Koran,  84,  a5,  86,  87,  90,  276 
Kusari,  110,  114,  115,  124 

Lavatek,  248 

Leonidas,  40 

Leo  X.,  Pope,  lUti,  174 

Lessing,  Ephraiui,  247,  250 

Levi,  Don  Astruc.  142 

Lisbon,  100,  204 

Literatuv,  Juedisclie,  "277 

Livy,  Kid 

Loriiui,  Josliurt,  140 

Lncian,  100 

Luther,  Martin,  70, 177 

Maccabees,  41,  47,  >")9 

Macedonian,  50 

Maimonides,  Moses,  92,   122-i;30,  145, 

188,  194,  220,  24(),  331 
^lanheimer,  205 
Manetho,  14,  17 

]Maranos,  156,  182,  210,  217,  222,  223 
Martel,  Charles,  153 
Mathatias,  47 
Maximilian,  109 

Mayence,  Arclibishop  of,  lti9,  170 
Meir,  Rabbi.  129 
^lelanchthon,  177 
Meneptlia,  17 
Mendelssohn,    Moses,    132,    239,  240- 

252,  250,  2()3 
Mendoza,  Beatrice,  183 
Menton,  Ratti.  283 
Messiah,  59,  o:'.,  105,  129,  139,  140,  197, 

198,  199,  2(X),  205,  206,  207,  208,  210, 

211,  217,  220,  222,  227,  229,  2:57,  254, 

275 
]Mesusoth,  245 
Metz,  235 

Middlesex,  Lord,  210 
Midian,  13 
Mikva,  89 
Miltiades,  40 
Minerva,  4 
Minhag  America.  'W 
Mishna,  75,   7S,    128,  130,    197,    242; 

sjrnopsis  of.  74,  75 
Miques,  Joan,  183 
Modin,  47 


Mohammedanism,  4,  32,  84,  85,  86,  88, 
90,  91,  110,  118,  128,  129,  132,  163, 
163,  105,  177,  208,  2M,  240,  209 

Monteliore,  Sir  Moses,  278-295 

Montezinos,  Antonio  de,  206 

Moors.  153,  154,  158 

Moravia,  108,  232 

"  Morning  Hours,"  The,  249 

Morteira,  Saul.  223 

Moses,  12-24,  108,  113,  131,  133,  156, 
194,  195,  200 

Mt.  Sinai,  72 

Miillcr,  :Max,  106 

Murat  IIL,  187 

Naples,  161 
Nebuchadnezzar,  29 
Nero,  Emperor,  314 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  5,  0 
New  York,  302 

Nissi,  Don  Joseph,  178,182,  183;  bi- 
ography of,  183-187 

Omar,  Caliph,  112 

Palestine,  29,  41,  45,  73,  87,  89,  112, 
120,  197,  283-285,  333;  colonization 
of  Jews  in,  186 

Paris,  00,  202;  University  of,  175 

Peniscola,  143 

Pentateuch,  89,  245,  248 

Persia,  41,  44,  5(),  84 

Pfetferkorn,  Johann,  1(;2,  10.3-178 

Pharisees,  80 

Phillipson,  Dr.  Ludwig,  205 

Pha>nicians,  153 

Picciotto,  284 

Pisa,  Council  of,  139  « 

Pittsburg,  Convention,  145,  313 

Platiea,  41 

Plato,  40 

Pompey,  .")(i 

Posner,  Abraham,  244 

Ptolemv,  14 

Pumbedita,  University  of,  88,  95,  96, 
111,  1K8 

Puritans,  89,  199 

Pyrrhus,  98 

Rabbinites,  81,  90,  92,  98 

Rameses  III.,  17 

Reformation,  The,  70,  94,  102, 177,  240 

Religion,  Progress  of,  5 

Reuchliii,  102;  biography  of,  170;  trial 

of.  17:'.,  177;   defence    of    Talmud, 

171,  172 
Rhine,  254 
Rhodes,  Island  of,  284 


340 


INDEX. 


Rome,  46,  47,  52,  57,  59,  94,  112,  153, 

1(54,  175,  176,  262 
Rothschild,  288 
Rousseau,  244 
Russia,  80,  243 

Saadia,  93-108,  188  ;  biography  of,  !)8, 

yy;  philosophy  of,  y7-]03 
Sabbath,  Institution  of,  33 
Saccai,  Jochanan  Ben,  53-65, 108,  135, 

331 
Sachs,  Dr.,  265 
Sadducees,  57,  80 
Saladiii,  130 
Salaniis,  41 
Samaritans,  29,  32 
Sasportas,  213 
Sefer  Ikkarini,  144 
Selim,  184,  185 
Senjor,  Abraham,  161 
Septal! ,  17 
Setnekht,  17 
Shamai,  72,  73 
Shulchan  Aruch,    18y,    lyy,   200,  201, 

2iy;  defined,  lyy 
Simon,  39,  108 
Simon,  Eleazar  Ben,  53 
Socrates,  247 

Soleiman,  Sultan,  183,  184 
Solomon,  19,  88,  2(>5 
Solon,  2y6 
Spain,  40,  56,   120,    151,   153,   KiO,    161, 

182,  222 
Spinoza,  Baruch,  215-227;  philosophy 

of,   224,    225;    excommunication  of, 

223 
Sura,  University  of,  88,  95,  96,  97,  99, 

111,  165,  188 
SYnhedrion«  53,  54,  58,  60,  61,  (J4 
Syria,  48,  50,  55,  59,  283 
Tacitus,  166 


Talmud,  55,  66-78,  81,  82,  98,  116,  118, 
129,  130,  1.31,  134,  141,  142,  160,  174, 
175,  177,  189,  197,  204,  219,  232,  233, 
242,  245,  248,  250,  3.33 ;  origin  of,  70- 
72;  description  and  history  of,  66-70 

Taric,  153 

Tarsus,  82 

Themistocles.  40 

Temple,  Destruction  of,  61 

Temple,  111,  114,  157 

Tephiliii,  245 

Testament.  New,  85,  166,209 

Trstauu'Ut,  Old,  86,  166,  209 

Thermii|>yl;e,  41 

Thomas,  Father,  283 

Tortosa.  140 

Torqufmada,  152,  157 

Toms,  IJattle  of,  153 

Tryi)li()n.  48 

Turk.s,  112,  165,  177 

United  States,  254,  293,  21>4 

Venice,  70 
Vespasian,  55,  60 
Voltaire,  244 

Vom  Buslie,  Herman,  174 
Von  Hutten,  Ulrich,  174 

Waxdsbeck,  235 

Wiesbaden,  276 

Wise,  Dr.  Isaac  M.,  296-313 

Xekxes,  40,  41 

Yahweh,  21,  22,  29,  36;  qualities  of, 
21,  22 

Zoroastkk,  87 

Zwi,  Sabbathai,  217,  227,  229,  233,234, 
237,  287 


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